LING   BY  THE  WRITTEN  WORD 


Mtrary 
Graduate  School  of  Business  Administration 

University  of  California 
Los  Angeles  24,  California 

V  ' 


ltng 

tije  Mrttten  OTorb 


Celling 

tfje  Written 


"THE  pen  is  the  tongue  of  the  hand; 

a  silent  utterer  of  words  for  the  eye." 

— HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 


® anbo  Company 

"Furnishing  a  Specialized  Advertising-Selling  Service  to 
Manufacturers,  Wholesalers,  Jobbers  and  Retailers" 

PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 
1918 


ARRANGED  AND  PRINTED  BY  THE  DANDO  COMPANY 
PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 


COPYRIGHT,  1917.  THE  DANDO  COMPANY 


Bus.  Admin. 
Library 


. 

Retrieving  a  Difficult  Situation    7)3  A  -> 

WE  found  that  we  had  inherited  a  heavy  overhead 
expense  which  included  considerable  interest  on  all 
debts  and  a  high  cost  of  production  due  to  a  limited 
distribution  and  small  sales. 

"Through  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Stephens,  the  president  of 
the  company  ,  we  were  able  to  negotiate  a  comparatively 
small  loan  with  which  to  finance  our  operations.  The  terms 
of  the  loan  stipulated  that  interest  and  principal  must  be 
paid  at  the  end  of  one  year.  The  result  of  our  analysis  was 
to  determine  how  we  should  use  this  money. 

"We  found  that  the  business  was  fairly  well  organized 
and  equipped  for  production.  Our  greatest  need  was  to 
increase  sales.  For  example,  our  figures  showed  that  if  we 
should  continue  the  business  for  another  year,  without  in- 
crease in  sales,  our  overhead  expense  would  make  us  show  a 
loss  of  twice  the  amount  of  the  loan. 

"In  view  of  that  condition,  it  seemed  evident  thaf  we 
should  concentrate  our  energy  on  distribution,  and  we  de- 
cided to  spend  the  entire  amount  on  advertising  and  sales 
promotion.  Such  a  course  meant  putting  all  of  our  eggs 
into  one  basket  —  making  one  big  play  to  win  or  lose  every- 
thing. We  felt  keenly  the  responsibility  of  our  position. 
We  experienced  a  nervous  reaction  at  the  thought  of  taking 
such  a  plunge. 

"  That  feeling  influenced  us  to  amend  our  decision,  or 
rather,  to  defer  definite  action  until  we  had  slept  over  it. 
We  agreed  that  if  each  man  felt  the  same  way  in  the  morn- 
ing the  decision  would  stand.  We  could  see  no  other  way 
out,  and  the  die  was  cast.  . 

"At  the  end  of  the  first  year  we  not  only  paid  the  loan, 
but  showed  a  substantial  profit  beside" 

MR.  LAMOUTTE 

The  Ansco  Co.,  Binghamton,  N.  Y. 


Contents 


PAGE 


INTRODUCTORY:       .     .     .     ...»      13 

The  Business — the  key  to  achievement 
Achieving  success  by 

(A)  Enhanced  price,  or 

(B)  Volume  of  distribution 

How  advertising  quickens  business  building 

Mistakes  of  commission 

Advertising,  a  force  that  can  destroy  or  create 

ADVERTISING  DEFINED:    .     .     .     .     25 

The  written  word  is  "advertising" 

Advertising  methods  discussed 

The  big  gap  in  advertising 

When  and  where  the  work  of  selling  starts 

The  "agency  system"  in  advertising 

Unbalanced  advertising 

Trade  paper  advertising 

Attention  vs.  result  advertising 

THE  MAIL  ORDER  BUSINESS:       .     .      35 

What  it  really  is 

Its  province  and  limitations 

Some  facts  about  claims  made 

DOING  BUSINESS  BY  MAIL:     .  41 

Something  quite  distinct  from  mail  order  business 
Getting  leads 

[9! 


(Contents 


PAGE 

Helping  the  salesmen 

The  salesman  as  one  selling  force  and  the 

printed  word  as  another 
The  ideal  business  combination 
What  good  sales  literature  can  and  cannot  do 
Blending  two  great  business  forces 

VERSATILITY  AS  A  BUSINESS- 
WINNING  FORCE:      .....     49 

Business  prospers  through  expression 

The  power  of  expression  comes  through  different 

personalities 
Multiplication  of  business  power 

THE  DANDO  COMPANY:    ....     55 

Its  scope,  service  and  province  in  relation  to 

business  building,  advertising  and  sales 
Presentation,  expression  and  impression 

ANALYSIS  AND  PLAN  DEPARTMENT:      63 

Presentation  (the  written  word) 
Catalogue  advertising 
The  booklet 
Distribution  of  booklets 

Letters,  "Inquiry-Bringers,"  "Selling  Letters," 
"Follow-Ups" 

ADVERTISING  PRINCIPLES:       .     .     .     81 

What  nature  teaches  the  advertiser 
[  10] 


(Contents 


PAGE 

The  blow  in  advertising 
The  principle  of  natural  growth 
Spasmodic  advertising  effort 
The  house  organ 
Its  purview  and  province 
The  selling  feats  one  well-known  house  organ 
accomplished 


PERIODICAL  ADVERTISING:  . 

V    Newspapers,  magazines,  technical  journals 

Errors  in  advertising 

"Classified"  advertising 

>/  Advertising  in  periodicals  compared  with 
advertising  through  the  mails 


MANUFACTURER, WHOLESALER  AND 

JOBBER: 107 

A  brief  epitome  of  trade  relationships 

DESIGN:        •     •  ,•  *      I  r3 

How  it  affects  and  supplements  results 
What  it  is  and  what  it  accomplishes  in 
modern  merchandising 

PRINTING: 125 

What  good  printing  does  and  what  good 
printers  do 

[   II   ] 


(Contents 


PAGE 

CONCLUSION: 131 

Advertising  should  be  based  on  coherent  logi- 
cal plans  supervised  and  controlled  by  one 
master  brain  to  be  successful 

The  safe  rule  in  advertising  practice 

The  fundamental  value  of  analysis  and  plan 
in  sales  work 

A  sound  rule  to  follow  in  choosing  advertising 
co-operation 

Advertising  a  trust — responsibility  in 
advertising 


[12  I 


Sntrotmctorp 


Stttrobuctorp 


WHY,  then,  the  world's  mine  oyster, 
Which  I  with  sword  will  open. 

— SHAKESPEARE. 

3T  has  been  said  that  the  world  owes 
every  man  a  living.   Apart  from  phys- 
ical or  social  cataclysms  that  at  times 
sweep  the  earth,  we  must  all  admit 
that  the  world  fulfills  its  trust.     Of 
the  thousands  of  millions  who  people  it,  there 
are  practically  none  who,  in  normal  conditions 
of  time  and  place,  do  not  contrive  to  live. 

The  dole  that  keeps  us  fed,  clothed  and  housed 
is  not  sufficient  for  the  man  who  regards  his  life 
as  an  opportunity  to  search  for,  and  possibly 
grasp,  happiness.  He  knows  that,  in  the  main, 
happiness  comes  from  ability  to  supply  wants, 
and  looking  at  the  rich,  portly  old  globe  upon 
whose  bosom  he  rests  he  sees  that,  while  it  owes 
him  a  living,  it  can  give  him  a  competence  or 
fortune. 

He  sees  that  he  can  acquire  this  competence 
or  fortune  (the  means  to  happiness)  through  the 
activity  he  habitually  follows  which  men  term 
"his  business,"  provided  he  plans  and  conducts 
it  right.  j  j 


Introductory 

So,  if  he  is  wise,  he  will  not  regard  his  busi- 
ness as  a  necessary  evil,  to  be  escaped  from 
as  occasion  offers,  but  as  the  sword  through 
which  he  will  reach  the  oyster  of  fortune  he 
demands. 

Looking  around  him,  he  will  see  others  who, 
once  situated  as  he  is,  have  won  fortune,  and 
possibly  happiness,  by  realizing  that  their  busi- 
ness was  the  tool,  lever  or  sword  through  which 
they  could  achieve  their  desires. 

In  the  light  of  this  idea,  his  business  will  no 
longer  harness  Mm  for  eight  or  ten  hours  daily, 
driving  him  to  daily  constant  toil;  he  will 
harness  his  business  eight  or  ten  hours  daily, 
driving  /'/  to  constant  toil. 

A  man's  business  is  the  steed  upon  which  he 
may  ride  to  success.  The  majority  of  men  do 
not  appreciate  the  possibilities  of  the  horse  they 
ride;  it  jog-trots,  and  they  are  content  to  so  go 
eight  hours  daily,  leaving  it  at  the  end  of  the 
day  outside,  neglected  and  forlorn,  while  they 
seek  conviviality  and  good  cheer  at  the  way- 
side inn. 

If  they  spent  the  time  they  wasted,  grooming 
their  steed,  putting  it  in  good  fettle,  its  jog-trot 
would  soon  develop  into  an  easy  canter,  then 

[  16] 


Introductory 

an  exhilarating  gallop,  that,  distancing  erst- 
while business  companions  or  competitors, 
would  soon  arrive  at  the  destination  where 
means  and  money  and  advantages  abound. 

A  few  in  every  line  of  trade  and  manufacture 
are  doing  just  this  thing.  A  man  can  make  a 
fortune  out  of  pins — if  he  sells  enough  of  them. 
Business  fortunes  are  made  by  selling  low-profit 
goods  in  large  volume  or  individualized  service 
or  goods  at  high  profit. 

The  man  whose  business  hinges  on  himself 
must  break  through  the  rut  and  achieve  for- 
tune by  charging  more  than  the  conventional 
price.  We  see  this  illustrated,  for  example,  in  the 
physician;  he  gets  nowhere  in  particular  at  $i 
a  visit;  physical  limitations  prevent  him  reaching 
fortune  by  that  route.  He  must  contrive  in  some 
way  to  make  the  number  of  visits  he  makes  in  a 
day  yield  him  more  money — much  more. 

The  position  of  the  man  catering  (with  goods 
or  services)  to  a  limited  constituency  is  very 
much  the  same.  There  is  a  conventional  scale 
of  prices  for  those  goods  in  all  probability,  and, 
following  that  scale,  he  will  never  get  rich 
because  his  possible  field  is  not  large  enough. 
He  must  either  discover  (or  create)  new 


Introductory 

fields  or  (in  the  face  of  convention  and  custom) 
obtain  higher  prices. 

This  is  the  business  problem;  hard  as  it  is, 
it  is  very  seldom  as  hard  as  it  looks;  hard  as 
it  may  look  to  him,  it  is  very  seldom  as  hard 
as  it  looks  to  the  outsider  —  the  intelligent, 
highly  trained,  specialized  outsider  whom  we 
may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  class  as  the  business 
specialist — a  man  who  studies  fundamental 
principles  in  lieu  of  being  steeped  in  conven- 
tional methods  —  a  man  whose  strength  lies  in 
his  imaginative  and  inventive  faculties  which 
enable  him  to  see  in  any  given  situation  far 
more  than  the  average  man  sees.  Of  this 
more  anon. 

The  man  whose  business  hinges  on  volume  is 
faced  with  the  problem  of  large  distribution  at 
low  cost;  he  keeps  within  the  conventional 
price  scale  and  wins  out  by  distribution  methods 
that  keep  profits  intact  or  increase  them  as  the 
case  may  be. 

Uneeda  Biscuits,  Fairy  and  Ivory  Soaps, 
Sapolio,  Gold  Dust  and  others  are  typical  of 
this  class. 

To  an  outsider  breaking  in,  the  problem  looks 
hard,  but  is  seldom  as  hard  as  it  looks. 

[  18  ] 


Introductory 

How  '^Advertising  Quickens 
'Business  'Building 

Modern  business  methods  are  hardly  a  cen- 
tury old;  before  then  business  building  was  a 
slow  process;  a  big  reputable  merchandising 
house  was  the  work  of  several  generations. 

Today  a  decade  is  sufficient  for  such  houses 
to  flourish.  The  cause  stands  revealed  in  the 
printing  press;  through  it  the  miracle  of  popular 
education  was  achieved;  on  top  of  that  came  the 
modern  miracle  of  merchandising.  The  man 
who  a  century  ago  was  confined  to  the  bound- 
aries of  his  city  or  suburb,  today  sells  his  mer- 
chandise to  a  state,  nation  or  world;  the  man 
who  a  century  ago  had  to  wait  while  other 
people  made  his  reputation  now  creates  it  for 
himself  by  and  through  the  printing  press,  the 
printed  word,  the  selling/or^  of  advertising. 

Is  this  true?  Ask  yourself  the  question  in  the 
light  of  American  commercial  history — in  the 
light  of  the  magazine  pages  spread  before  you — 
in  the  light  of  the  rating  books  of  today  giving 
the  standing  and  wealth  of  the  advertisers  in 
those  magazines — in  the  light  of  the  rating  books 
of  a  decade  ago  showing  where  they  stood  when  they 

[  19] 


Introductory 

got  their  start  —  where  they  were  when  they  first 
realized  the  possibilities  of  the  steed  they  were 
riding. 

To  doubt  the  road  is  to  doubt  the  evidence  of 
physical  facts. 

Today  the  man  with  the  right  product  ',  rightly 
•presented  by  the  right  plan  to  the  right  class  of 
people,  has  the  audience  that  one  hundred  mil- 
lion souls  are  capable  of  yielding. 

Ordinarily  that  audience  is  (in  his  early  ad- 
vertising stages)  far  too  vast  for  him  to  even 
attempt  to  cover;  ordinarily  if  he  can  but  win 
the  trade  of  a  fractional  part  of  that  audience 
his  business  fortune  is  made. 


of  (Commission 

We  have  said  that  to  doubt  the  road  is  to 
doubt  the  evidence  of  physical  facts.  To  this  we 
might  add  that  it  is  not  the  nature  of  the  aver- 
age American  to  doubt  physical  facts;  his  trouble 
is  not  one  of  omission,  but  of  commission.  He 
sees  the  road  clearly  enough  and  has  a  very 
healthy  conception  of  its  physical  existence;  his 
single  trouble  is  that  he  underestimates  the  diffi- 
culties in  his  path  prior  to  the  first  advertising 
experiment  —  and  is  awed  by  them  afterwards. 

[20] 


Introductory 

He  is  like  a  child  riding  the  business  horse. 
Sears,  of  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Co.,  and  Wrigley,  of 
chewing  gum  fame,  each  set  out  to  conquer  the 
world  with  something  like  a  ten  dollar  bill  for 
capital — and  succeeded.  He  thinks  he  can  do 
likewise — and  fails.  He  has  used  what  they 
have  used,  the  printed  word.  Their  tool  has 
failed  him,  hence  it  is  condemned — a  conclusion 
as  illogical  as  it  is  harmful. 

The  abstract  business  horse,  like  its  physical 
brother,  has  to  be  got  into  condition  prior  to  its 
long  gallops  successward.  The  goal  aimed  at, 
usually,  cannot  be  reached  in  one  spectacular 
ride,  but  by  graded  stages,  carefully  tempered  to 
stamina  and  initial  financial  conditions. 

The  average  American  breaking  into  adver- 
tising would  do  infinitely  better  if  he  would  set 
out  to  conquer  a  county  in  lieu  of  a  nation. 
That  he  may  conquer  a  nation  as  a  result  of 
conquering  a  county  in  no  sense  alters  the 
original  specification. 

Advertising  is  an  elemental  force.  Like  all 
forces,  it  can  make  or  break,  build  up  or  destroy. 
A  man  in  advertising  can  lose  a  fortune  as 
readily  as  he  can  make  it.  There  are  certain 
men  possessing  a  certain  degree  of  familiarity 

[21    ] 


Introductory 

with  this  force  just  as  the  engineer  possesses 
familiarity  with  steam.  These  men,  business 
specialists,  have,  through  constant  observation 
(their  daily  work),  observed  that  this  force, 
like  all  other  forces,  is  subject  to  certain  laws. 
These  laws  they  have  analyzed  and  classified. 
Their  knowledge  of  the  great  force  of  adver- 
tising is  not  complete.  There  is  much  they 
would  like  to  know  that  they  do  not  know  and 
much  they  are  learning  to  know  that  they  did 
not  previously  know,  but  they  know  enough 
(if  of  responsible  caliber)  to  preserve  those  they 
serve  from  the  evil  effects  of  the  force  invoked 
if  it  is  turned  in  the  wrong  direction,  becoming 
a  destroying  in  lieu  of  a  creative  element. 

Possibly,    from    what    has    been    said,   you, 
reader,  will  allow  the  following  to  stand  as  facts: 

1  That  each  line  of  business  furnishes  examples 

of  success. 

2  That  it  is  possible  for  you  to  emulate  and 

perhaps  duplicate  these  successes. 

3  That  a  business  conducted  right  does  not 

drive,  but  is  driven. 

4  That  resourcefulness,  knowledge  and  skill  is 

required  to  break  through  the  conventional 
ruts  of  price  and  distribution. 

[22] 


Introductory 

5  That  these  qualities  exist  and  can  be  pro- 

cured and  used. 

6  That  advertising  is  an  elemental  force  capa- 

ble of  making  or  breaking. 

7  That  all  forces  of  this  character  are  both 

creative  and  destructive  and  should  be  used 
under  skilled  guidance  alone. 

8  That  while  such  guidance  does  not  eliminate 

the  possibility  of  failure  (owing  to  unknown 
factors  and  laws  peculiar  to  the  science  and 
not  as  yet  mastered)  it  does  eliminate  to  a 
very  large  degree  the  possibility  of  failure 
and  does  temper  failure  if  it  comes,  to  a 
point  where  it  is  not  fatal. 


gtoberttstng  Beftneb 


gfotoertteing  Befineb 


WORDS  will  not  fail  when  the  matter 
is  well  considered. — HORACE. 

E  have  spoken  a  good  deal 
about  advertising,  and  pos- 
sibly it  is  time  to  define 
what  we  mean  by  that 
term;  in  our  judgment  any- 
thing that  assists  to  build  up  a  business  by  the 
written  word  is  advertising. 

Some  people  consider  advertising  as  an- 
nouncements in  newspapers,  magazines  and 
other  periodicals.  That  is  not  our  idea  of  it  at  all; 
a  circular  letter  is  an  advertisement;  so  is  a 
folder;  so  is  a  booklet;  so  is  a  personal  letter, 
or  a  series  of  letters  written  personally  or  dupli- 
cating a  "form." 

Newspaper  and  periodical  advertising  is  sim- 
ply part  of  advertising  in  general — a  special 
branch  of  the  science.  Remember,  please,  when 
we  speak  of  advertising  we  refer  to  anything 
that  assists  to  build  up  the  business  by  the 
written  word.  Our  meaning  will  then  be  quite 
clear.  There  are  a  few  thousand  newspaper 
and  magazine  advertisers  in  the  United  States 

[27] 


^Advertising  ^Defined 


and  a  few  million  advertisers  by  other  methods. 
The  few  thousand,  owing  to  the  workings  of  the 
commission  system,  have  been  given  good  at- 
tention in  at  least  one  important  business-get- 
ting detail — assistance  to  impress  the  name  and 
assistance  to  get  the  inquiries — the  seeds  from 
which  spring  sales. 

You,  reader,  may  use  the  mails  exclusively 
in  getting  business,  or  as  an  aid  in  getting  busi- 
ness. You  are  advertising  just  as  the  news- 
paper or  magazine  man  is  advertising;  your 
vehicle  for  getting  business  is  different,  that  is 
all.  The  important  thing  is  not  so  much  the 
way  of  getting  business  as  the  business  itself. 

The  right  method  of  advertising  is  an  important 
problem  in  every  business.  Many  are  using  news- 
papers when  they  should  use  magazines;  many 
using  magazines  should  be  using  trade  papers. 
Many  using  trade  papers  should  be  using  the 
mails.  The  advertising  effort  of  many  firms  is, 
while  successful,  unbalanced — one  type  or  class 
of  advertising  at  the  expense  of  another — the 
profits  from  magazines  being  absorbed  by  un- 
profitable trade  or  newspaper  space  or  vice 
versa.  Advertising  at  first  glance  seems  quite 
a  simple  proposition,  but,  as  we  go  into  it,  we 

[  28] 


Advertising  'Defined 


/  begin  to  see  it  is  not  nearly  so  simple  as  it 
looks;  ultimately  we  realize  it  is  really  a  very 
\  complex  proposition  requiring  specialized  study 
^  and  training. 

Possibly  the  big  gap  in  advertising  through 
which  the  most  money  drops  exists  between  the 
inquiry  and  the  sale.  An  advertising  campaign 
in  newspapers  or  magazines  is  started.  Skilled 
advertising  men,  under  the  commission  system, 
write  and  place  the  periodical  advertisements, 
their  reimbursement  coming  from  the  pub- 
lishers of  these  newspapers  and  magazines  who 
pay  them  (or  allow  them  a  discount)  approxi- 
mating 15  per  cent,  on  the  value  of  the  space 
purchased. 

As  a  great  rule  (and  properly),  these  an- 
nouncements are  not  calculated  to  sell  direct, 
but  to  draw  mail  inquiries  to  the  advertiser. 
Inquiries  indicate  preliminary  attention  and 
interest,  and  represent,  in  large  degree,  potential 
purchasers. 

If  an  average  advertising  campaign  is  ex- 
amined, it  will  be  found  that  a  great  deal  of 
money  is  expended  in  buying  space  and  illus- 
trations to  fill  space  bought.  This  money,  as 
we  have  shown,  brings  the  inquiry. 

[29] 


^Advertising  'Defined 


The  inquiry  itself  is  neglected,  comparatively 
speaking.  In  other  words,  it  has  been  the 
experience  of  men  who  have  analyzed  average 
campaigns  to  find  that  letters  answering  in- 
quiries are  written  by  cheap  clerks  and  that 
the  printed  matter  enclosed  with  letter,  and 
subsequent  "follow-up,"  is  incapable  of  its  true 
work,  ;.  e.y  that  of  turning  the  inquiry  into  a 
sale. 

The  work  of  selling  really  starts  after  the 
inquiry  is  in.  Inquiries  represent  neither  orders 
nor  cash — only  potential  orders  and  cash. 
Here,  then,  is  the  big  gap  through  which  money 
drops.  The  advertising  agency  earns  its  com- 
missions when  it  buys  the  space  and  places  the 
advertisements.  Sometimes  it  is  asked,  in 
addition,  to  prepare  the  matter  necessary  to 
answer  the  inquiries  springing  from  the  adver- 
tisements. This,  to  the  agency,  represents  an 
unwarranted  "load"  it  is  asked  to  carry.  There 
is  no  remuneration  for  it;  the  incentive  that 
did  exist  for  the  "placing"  (the  commission) 
does  not  exist  for  this.  The  work  is  not  ap- 
proached in  the  right  spirit.  The  various 
technical  publications  circulating  among  adver- 
tising agencies  have  admitted  from  time  to 

[30] 


Advertising  'Defined 


time  that  the  difference  between  the  strength  of 
the  magazine  announcements  and  the  material 
prepared  to  answer  inquiries  from  those  an- 
nouncements is  frequently  fatal  to  the  success 
of  an  advertising  campaign. 

Personally  speaking,  we  (The  Dando  Com- 
pany) consider  it  no  more  right  to  ask  an  ad- 
vertising agency  to  prepare  the  material  to 
answer  inquiries  than  it  would  be  right  to  ask 
us  to  "place"  advertisements  without  remunera- 
tion. Personally,  we  would  refuse  such  a 
specification.  It  is  to  be  regretted  in  the  in- 
terests of  sound  advertising  that  many  adver- 
tising agencies  have  not  the  courage  to  refuse 
when  such  a  specification  is  insisted  on  by  the 
advertiser. 

Unbalanced  advertising  of  the  worst  character 
exists  when  the  copy  bringing  the  inquiries  is 
strong  and  the  letters  and  printed  literature 
answering  those  inquiries  is  weak. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  condition 
is  not  alone  common,  but  (with  a  few  notable 
exceptions)  universal. 

When  you  want  a  man  to  give  you  satisfac- 
tion, pay  him  for  what  he  does  and  do  not  ask 
him  to  do  anything  you  do  not  pay  him  for. 


Advertising  'Defined 


Probably  the  next  greatest  gap  through  which 
dollars  drop  is  that  where  the  advertising  an- 
nouncements themselves  are  weak. 

This  usually  occurs  in  trade  publications. 
The  publishers  of  most  trade  publications  pay  no 
commissions  or  discounts  to  advertising  agencies. 
As  a  consequence,  they  do  not  seek  trade  journal 
advertisers.  This  results  in  "home-made"  copy. 
In  such  instances,  the  advertiser  doesn't  get 
results  from  his  trade  paper  and  doesn't  know 
whether  it  is  doing  him  good  or  not.  Practically, 
it  is  not,  and  the  money  expenditure,  whatever 
it  is,  simply  represents  an  unnecessary  waste — 
an  unnecessary  drag  on  profits. 

This  condition  occurs  in  another  form  when 
the  advertiser,  using  magazines,  does  not  seek 
inquiries,  but  relies  on  the  consumer  purchasing 
his  goods  through  his  local  dealer. 

Such  an  advertiser,  lacking  knowledge  of  cor- 
rect advertising  principles,  is  unable  to  differ- 
entiate between  weakness  and  strength  and 
usually  O.  K.'s  an  attention-winning  advertise- 
ment in  lieu  of  one  that  brings  results. 

In  such  a  case,  we  find  the  business  supporting 
the  advertising  and  not  the  advertising  supporting 
the  business. 


^Advertising  'Defined 


A  few  exceedingly  rich  concerns  can  afford 
such  ruinous  publicity.  The  average  business 
sinks  beneath  it  into  the  "advertising  grave- 
yard." 

A  business  man  should  know — know — the 
precise  weakness  and  strength  of  the  advertising 
he  is  doing,  whether  it  is  "publicity,"  "inquiry- 
bringing  or  "selling"  copy. 

A  self-styled  salesman  "advertising"  the  busi- 
ness, i.  e.j  talking  it  up,  but  not  getting  orders, 
would  not  last  long.  It  is  the  business  of 
advertising  to  be  "profitable;  "advertising"  that 
isn't  should  be  dismissed. 


[331 


4Watl  ©rber 


Jflatl 


HE  t0Ao  overlooks  a  fault  invites  the 
commission  of  another. — SYRUS. 

"MAIL  ORDER   BUSINESS"   is 

one  that  does  its  business  exclusively 
by  mail — one  that  puts  the  entire 
burden  of  selling  on  the  written 
word. 

There  has  been  much  written  that  is  true 
about  the  mail  order  business,  and  much  that  is 
false;  the  subject  will  stand  a  brief  study  and 
analysis. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  mail  order  business 
is  the  logical  product  of  a  large  population,  just 
as  the  cream  in  the  bowl  is  the  product  of  a 
large  quantity  of  milk. 

We  can  carry  the  analogy  on:  the  mail  order 
advertiser  really  skims  the  cream  in  the  shape 
of  people  common  to  any  large  group,  suscep- 
tible to  the  written  word  to  the  point  of  allowing 
it  to  sell  them. 

The  mail  order  advertiser  is  continuously 
half  and  three-quarters  selling  a  large  number  of 

[37] 


The  tjKCail  Order  'Business 


people  to  whom  he  never  actually  sells.  Those 
he  does  sell  to  sustain  him.  He  works  on  a 
large  population,  and  this  large  population  in 
turn  yields  him  a  sufficiently  large  number  of 
susceptible  people  to  be  profitable. 

The  mail  order  man  must  reach  large  groups 
of  people  through  large  circulations.  At  best, 
there  is  going  to  be  tremendous  wastage. 

Allowing  for  the  wastage,  his  business  is  still 
profitable. 

The  man  who  claims  that  a  letter  or  booklet 
is  as  effective  as  a  salesman  ought  to  be  laughed 
at  or  shown  the  door  in  accordance  with  your 
temperament.  He  is  either  a  fool  or  a  knave. 

To  find  the  relative  superiority  of  printed  vs. 
verbal  salesmen,  you  must  convert  your  prob- 
lem into  dollars.  Spend  a  thousand  dollars  on 
a  salesman  and  another  thousand  dollars  on 
advertising  literature  under  as  nearly  similar 
conditions  as  possible  and  then  tabulate  results, 
and  you  will  have  a  pretty  effective  answer. 
You  will  then  know  whether  it  is  most  profit- 
able or  most  convenient  to  sell  your  product  by 
male  or  mail. 

Remember  these  general  facts:  Take  the 
names  and  addresses  of  a  thousand  people;  cir- 

[38] 


The  tJxCail  Order  business 


cularize  them  thoroughly  and  attractively  by 
mail;  a  proportion  will  order.  Now  let  a  good 
salesman  call  on  those  thousand  people  with  the 
same  proposition;  another  proportion  will  order. 
This  proves  that  the  salesman  exerts  one  kind 
of  force  and  the  printed  word  exerts  another 
kind  of  force.  Many  interesting  experiments 
may  be  made  with  such  a  list.  It  can  be  divided 
into  two  parts,  one  being  canvassed  by  a  sales- 
man and  the  other  canvassed  by  mail.  The 
results  are  interesting,  particularly  when  re- 
duced to  exact  cost  basis.  The  salesman  can 
follow  the  literature  or  the  literature  can  follow 
the  salesman  and  results  compared;  when 
through,  however,  one  basic  principle  will 
stand  out: 

*A  Salesman  is  One  Force 
The  'Printed  Word  is  ^Another 

A  salesman  will  sell  a  man  the  printed  word 
could  not,  and,  vice  versa,  the  printed  word  will 
sell  a  man  the  salesman  could  not. 

That  is  one  thing  to  remember. 

The  general  rule  is  this:  If  you  have  a  propo- 
sition or  commodity  of  general  appeal  at  a 
"fair"  price,  permitting  a  good  profit,  you 

[39] 


The  <L%Cat7  Order  business 

have,  as  a  rule,  a  mail  order  proposition,  pro- 
vided you  have  numbers  to  go  to,  which,  of 
course,  you  have  in  America. 

If  your  prospective  buyers  are  limited  either 
in  numbers  or  by  territory,  you  cannot  live  on 
the  "cream"  that  you  would  skim;  your  field 
isn't  large  enough  and  you  have  not  got  a  mail 
order  proposition. 


[40] 


Boing  Pugtnes#  bp  Jfflatl 


Doing  Business  ty  jflail 


GET  your  principles  right,  then  'tis  a 
mere  matter  of  detail. — NAPOLEON. 

OING  business  by  mail  is  an  al- 
together different  proposition. 
The  mail  order  man  relies  ex- 
clusively on  the  printed  word 
and  does  business  with  people 
hundreds  or  thousands  of  miles  away. 

The  man  doing  business  by  mail  uses  the 
printed  word  as  an  auxiliary  force  to  his  sales- 
men or  to  his  office  and  employs  that  force,  as 
a  rule,  within  territory  his  salesmen  reach  or 
within  territory  where  "prospects"  can  reach 
him. 

Take  a  sales  agent,  for  instance,  whose  con- 
tract for  the  sale  of  automobiles  restricts  him 
to  New  York  City.  He  will  realize  he  cannot 
sell  an  automobile  by  mail  in  that  center;  that 
his  results  are  to  come  from  personal  interviews 
by  the  "prospect"  at  his  sales  rooms  or  by  his 
salesmen  at  the  "prospect's"  home. 

The  fact  that  sales  are  made  in  person  often 
blinds  business  firms  to  the  importance  of  adver- 
tising matter  as  auxiliary  aids  to  those  sales. 

[431 


'Doing  ^Business  by 


The  mail  can  be  employed  most  profitably 
and  most  advantageously  to  get  "leads"  for 
the  salesmen.  It  can  be  employed  most  profit- 
ably and  most  advantageously  to  "half  or 
three-quarters  sell"  the  prospects  the  salesman 
is  after,  and  in  many  cases  to  wholly  sell  them 
precisely  as  in  mail  order  work. 

When  a  mail  campaign  supplements  the  male 
then,  remember,  two  forces  are  at  work  —  an 
extra  cylinder  has  been  added  to  the  business 
engine  —  an  additional  source  of  power  has 
been  developed. 

A  salesman  can  sell  goods  unaided  by  the 
printed  word. 

The  printed  word  can  sell  goods  unaided  by 
salesmen. 

Both  of  those  propositions  have  been  so 
thoroughly  proven  in  the  commercial  history  of 
America  that  it  would  be  idle  for  us  to  prove 
them  further. 

The  ideal  combination,  therefore,  in  restricted 
territory  is  salesmen  and  the  printed  word 
working  in  combination. 

That  combination  gets  about  all  the  juice 
out  of  the  fruit  it  is  possible  to  get;  where  the 
field  is  so  relatively  narrow  that  intensive  work 

[44] 


'Doing  business  by 


is  called  for,  this  combination  produces  a  big 
crop  from  small  acreage. 

The  salesman  is  helped  by  the  printed  word. 

The  printed  word  is  helped  by  the  salesman. 

By  intelligent  use  of  the  mails,  combined 
with  a  correct  routing  system,  inquiries  can  be 
procured  in  specified  sections  so  that  the  sales- 
man with  little  waste  of  time,  effort  or  money 
passes  almost  from  door  to  door.  We  have,  for 
instance,  obtained  over  fifty  inquiries  from  peo- 
ple all  renting  offices  in  one  office  building; 
imagine  the  conservation  of  time  and  effort! 

By  intelligent  use  of  the  mails  and  the 
printed  word  it  is  possible  to  keep  an  intelligent 
and  alert  office  force  busy  from  morning  to  night 
selling  callers! 

By  intelligent  use  of  the  mails  and  the  printed 
word,  it  is  possible  to  keep  an  intelligent  and 
alert  office  force  calling  on  people  requesting 
interviews  at  their  homes! 

And,  as  all  good  salesmen  know,  such  visits 
and  such  requests  for  visits  are  tantamount  to 
sales. 

Many  firms  argue  that  because  a  salesman  is 
on  commission  it  is  up  to  him  to  effect  sales 
without  aid  from  the  office.  This  may  easily 

[451 


'Doing  business  by 


be  a  short-sighted  viewpoint.  A  certain  volume 
of  sales  is  required  to  defray  overhead.  If  that 
volume  is  not  attained,  the  firm  loses.  Doing 
business  by  mail  by  conserving  the  time  and 
effort  of  salesmen  brings  about,  naturally  and 
automatically,  a  largely  increased  business  as 
beneficial  and  as  profitable  to  the  firm  as  it  is 
beneficial  and  inspiriting  to  the  salesmen. 

Good  sales  literature  will  make  poor  salesmen 
"closers." 

It  gives  good  salesmen  an  opportunity  to 
close  a  much  larger  proportion  of  prospects  be- 
cause their  entire  energies  may  be  devoted  to- 
ward final  action,  in  lieu  of  having  to  bring  the 
"prospect"  through  the  preliminary  stages  of 
attention,  interest  and  desire,  as  is  the  case 
where  they  are  unsupported  by  auxiliary  lit- 
erature. 

Finally,  good  sales  literature  brings  people 
past  a  thousand  competing  offices  and  stores 
into  your  office  or  store.  There  interest  and 
persuasion  resigns  to  personality  and  human 
skill  and  the  sale  is  closed  if  it  is  possible  to 
close  it. 

Remember  —  you  can  sell  without  the  printed 
word  through  salesmen. 

[46] 


'Doing  ^Business  by 


And  —  you  can  sell  through  salesmen  without 
the  printed  word. 

Each  are  separate  and  distinct  forces.  The 
logical  course,  in  restricted  territory,  where  a 
high  percentage  of  results  must  be  secured 
from  a  narrow  field,  is  to  combine  both  forces. 

Otherwise  you  lose  to  the  extent  of  what  each 
could  give  you  alone,  and  to  the  extent  of  what 
each  can  give  you  with  the  aid  and  co-operation 
of  the  other.  We  have  proved  that  the  last 
factor  is  greater  than  the  first;  that  the  com- 
bination is  more  than  doubly  productive. 


[47] 


Uersfatilttp  a*  a 

Jforce 


a*  a 
nes£=OTmmng  Jforce 


As  /&?#  directest  the  power,  harm  or  advan- 
tage will follow ,  and  the  torrent  that  swept  the 
valley  may  be  led  to  turn  a  mill. — TUPPER. 

^9ffj^  HERE  are  any  amount  of  men  in 

m  business  making  a  little  success  who 

could  make  a  big  success  if  they 

^|^^^r     appreciated  the  value  of  versatility 

in  expressing  its  ideals  and  aims. 

The  eight  notes  of  the  musical  scale  ex-press 
music;  a  relatively  few  pigments  express  art; 
the  stupendous  keyboard  of  the  English  lan- 
guage, comprising  nearly  five  hundred  thousand 
terms,  is  at  hand  to  express  business. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  majority  of  men  are 
playing  on  an  exceedingly  small  section  of  a 
section  of  the  verbal  keyboard.  It  has  been 
computed  that  the  vocabulary  of  the  average 
man  is  limited  to  some  five  hundred  words! 

Vocabulary  is  the  key  to  expression  and  ex- 
pression contracts  or  expands  in  exact  propor- 
tion to  the  skill  exercised  in  striking  expression 
notes  and  chords. 


TSu  sines  s  -IF  inning  Force 


As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  man,  be  his  talent 
what  it  may,  can  ever  express  all  that  can  be 
expressed  in  relation  to  a  business,  be  that 
business  what  it  may. 

The  eight  notes  of  music  express  music  to  us. 
Beethoven  was  a  wonderful  musician;  did  he 
express  music  to  us?  In  part  he  did  in  his 
"Fidelia,"  nine  symphonies,  etc.;  but,  with  all 
his  art,  skill  and  versatility,  he  did  not  express 
Haydn's  "Creation"  or  "Messiah";  nor  did 
Haydn  express  Mozart's  "Magic  Flute"  or 
"Requiem";  nor  Mozart  express  Wagner's 
"Lohengrin"  and  "Parsifal." 

Tennyson,  master  of  words,  wrote  "In  Memo- 
riam,"  but  had  not  Goethe  lived  the  world  would 
have  lost  the  "Sorrows  of  Werther"  and 
"Faust." 

Expression  makes  or  breaks  us.  The  diamond 
expresses  its  beauty  by  glowing  rays  of  light 
and  is  treasured  through  it.  Music  expresses  its 
soul  through  notes  of  sweetness,  grandeur  or 
sorrow;  poetry  expresses  itself  through  the 
magic  of  words  which  take  us  into  fairyland 
and  heavenland.  Yet,  in  the  world  of  gems 
the  sapphire,  pearl,  opal  or  ruby  challenge  suc- 
cessfully the  cold  beauty  of  the  diamond. 

[  5*1 


'Business-Winning  Force 


Nature,  which  differentiates  every  flower, 
leaf,  tree  and  pebble,  never  intended  that  one 
man  or  thing  could  express  all  things.  One 
man,  however  talented,  can  never  express  a 
tithe  of  the  expression  possible  to  any  business. 

Yet  a  business  grows  through  expression. 

Appreciates  through  expression. 

A  versatile  man  expressing  to  the  limits  of  his 
versatility  the  aims  and  ideals  of  a  business  is  a 
valuable  asset  to  that  business.  He  stands  to  it 
like  Beethoven  stood  to  the  eight  musical  notes; 
yet  his  talent  is  not  exhaustless.  It  is  in  fact 
relatively  limited,  great  though  it  may  be.  To 
obtain  adequate,  many-sided  expression,  he  must 
have  around  him,  or  draw  to  him,  the  Han  dels, 
Mozarts,  Wagners  and  Rossinis  of  the  adver- 
tising world.  To  get  the  finest  measure  of 
results,  he  must  supplement  his  talent  with 
other  talent. 

The  bigger  the  man  the  greater  his  under- 
standing, the  more  he  grasps  this  vital  truth. 
Carnegie  said,  "When  I  die  place  on  my  tomb- 
stone this  epitaph:  'Here  lies  a  man  who 
kept  around  him  men  cleverer  than  himself.'  ' 
To  express  the  true  sense  of  this,  Mr.  Carnegie 
should  have  added,  "in  some  things." 

[53] 


business-thinning  Force 


Multiply  your  business  cylinders  as  rapidly 
as  time  or  occasion  permits  and  thus  gain  more 
power,  more  smoothness,  more  speed. 

A  firm  retains  an  advertising  manager  —  per- 
haps a  veritable  Beethoven  in  the  advertising 
field.  If  that  firm  is  wise,  it  will  not  handicap 
him  by  an  utterly  wrong  idea  as  to  his  abilities 
and  capabilities.  The  bigger  the  man  the  better 
he  will  know  that  he  can  express  only  one  side 
of  the  many-sided  advertising  possibilities  in- 
herent in  the  business,  and  the  broader  and 
brainier  he  is  the  more  he  will  want  to  bring 
that  precious  jewel  versatility  to  the  business 
by  finding,  discovering  and  engaging  fresh  talent 
to  supplement  his  talent. 

The  right  kind  of  advertising  manager,  as  time 
and  occasion  serves,  will,  like  Carnegie,  seek  to 
surround  himself  with  men  as  clever  as  himself. 
Using  alike  diamonds,  pearls,  rubies,  sapphires 
and  opals  for  contrast,  beauty,  versatility,  he  will 
be  following  a  law  of  nature  which  has  decreed 
that  there  will  be  no  one  master,  but  countless 
masters  of  the  art  of  selling  by  the  written  word, 
as  there  is  no  one  master,  but  countless  masters, 
in  the  arts  of  music,  painting,  drama,  poetry, 
sculpture  and  literature. 

[54] 


Company 


Banfco 


WE  can  be  more  clever  than  one,  but  not 
more  clever  than  all.  —  LAROCHEFOUCAULD. 


DANDO  COMPANY  assists 
business  firms  in  the  sale  of  their 
goods  or  services,  concentrating 
exclusively  on  THE  WRITTEN  WORD. 
The  definition  is  simple  enough, 
but  beneath  it  are  thousands  of  complex  situa- 
tions and  problems. 

If  you  print  and  circulate  anything  to  help 
you  get  business,  you  can  in  all  probability  use 
our  services  with  profit  to  yourself. 

That,  again,  sounds  relatively  simple;  in  reality 
just  such  a  condition  introduces  us  to  a  highly 
complex  situation  —  simple  enough  if  the  business 
we  approach  was  intended  to  standstill,  but  com- 
plex in  the  fact  that  we  make  it  march  forward. 
In  other  words,  we  are  used  to  make  a  business 
grow  —  as  rapidly  and  as  profitably  as  it  is 
humanly  possible  to  make  it  grow  consistent 
with  its  best  interests. 

Our  primary  problem  is  to  make  the  business 
our  customer  owns  successful  —  as  successful  as 
it  should  be. 

1  57! 


The  T)ando  (Company 


If  it  is  true  that  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  all 
business  enterprises  fail,  it  will  be  seen  that  our 
problem  is  not  nearly  so  simple  as  it  looks;  it 
is,  in  fact,  extraordinarily  difficult,  calling  for 
and  demanding  the  services  not  alone  of  clever, 
brainy  men,  but  of  men  who  have  specialized  on 
business  problems  constantly — hour  by  hour, 
day  by  day,  year  by  year. 

Men  of  that  caliber  and  type  are  not  easy  to 
obtain  and  are  costly  to  retain,  but  that  is  the 
type  of  men  who  comprise  our  staff. 

We  are  under  no  illusions  as  to  the  difficulties 
that  confront  us  when  we  approach  each  busi- 
ness task.  We  pay,  and  pay  we!/,  for  the  most 
skilled  service  procurable  in  the  difficult  science 
of  business  analysis,  plan,  presentation  and 
design.  Our  ultimate  is  the  crystallization  of 
printed  words  that  sell.  These  things  preface 
that  ultimate  to  the  same  essential  degree  as 
the  boiler  and  fuel  preface  the  driving  power  of 
steam. 

In  most  businesses  the  manufacturing  or  pro- 
ducing end  receives  a  great  deal  more  attention 
than  the  distributing  and  selling  end. 

In  most  businesses  the  selling  end  is  neglected 
— not  consciously  perhaps,  but  ignorantly.  To 

[58] 


The  T)ando  (Company 


slightly  paraphrase  an  old  Arab  proverb,  "Men 
know  not,  and  know  not  they  know  not." 

A  great  many  businesses  sustain  the  adver- 
tising. If  the  advertising  was  right,  the  adver- 
tising should  sustain  those  businesses. 

A  great  many  businesses  are  being  poorly 
sustained  by  advertising  that,  rightly  directed, 
should  sustain  them  handsomely. 

A  great  many  businesses  are  finding  that  ad- 
vertising which  in  the  past  was  productive  is 
not  now  as  productive  as  it  was;  the  business- 
winning  factor  is  retrograding. 

Something  is  wrong  in  all  these  cases;  some- 
thing may  be  seriously  wrong. 

A  business  is  simply  expressing  itself  to  the 
outside  public  just  as  a  musician,  through  har- 
mony, expresses  music. 

If  presentation  notes  or  chords  are  not  right, 
a  wrong  impression  is  created.  This  impression, 
good,  bad  or  indifferent,  as  the  case  may  be, 
unerringly  reflects  itself  in  sales. 

Sales,  profits,  dividends  are  high  or  low  as 
expression  and  impression  rank  high  or  low. 

Very  often  something  is  known  to  be  wrong, 
but  the  firm  cannot  find  out  what  it  is,  and  the 
public  it  goes  to,  even  if  asked  (assuming 

[59] 


The  T)ando  (Company 


straightforwardness  could  be  counted  upon, 
which  is  not  the  case  when  it  comes  to  frank 
criticism),  is  not  sufficiently  skillful  to  tell. 

Most  impressions  are  arrived  at  subcon- 
sciously. The  average  man,  if  asked  to  explain, 
cannot  tell  why  he  was  impressed  favorably  or 
otherwise  with  a  certain  thing  or  a  certain 
presentation.  He  can  tell  in  part,  but  not  in 
whole.  He  can  give  an  angle  of  his  mind,  but 
cannot  mirror  it  in  its  entirety  as  regards  what 
you  have.  He  lacks  the  faculty  first  and  the 
skill  second  necessary  to  crystallize  figments  of 
thought  into  words ,  written  or  spoken. 

If  you  could  see  your  business  exactly  and 
precisely  as  the  vast  majority  of  those  you 
reach  see  it,  you  would  in  all  probability,  with 
this  mirrored  reflection  before  you,  see  many 
things  that  could  be  advantageously  changed, 
altered,  modified,  strengthened  or  eliminated. 

It  takes  a  man  who  has  habitually  done  this 
sort  of  thing  for  years  and  years  to  do  that  for 

you. 

Oh,  wad  some  power  the  giftie  gie  us 

To  see  oursel's  as  ithers  see  us! 
It  wadfrae  monie  a  blunder  free  us, 
And  foolish  notion. 

[60] 


The  T)ando  (Company 


Such  a  man  is  on  the  staff  of  The  Dando 
Company,  and  firms  wishing  to  see  their  business 
presentation  as  their  public  see  it  can  consummate 
their  wish  by  paying  the  fee  necessary  for 
"analysis  and  plan." 


[61  ] 


anb 


anii 


GAIN  at  the  expense  of  reputation 
is  manifest  loss. — PUBLIUS  SYRUS. 

HE  service  of  this  "Analysis  and 
Plan"  Department  does  not  end, 
however,  with  a  mere  reflection  of 
your  business.  That  is  but  one 
valuable  factor  of  the  service. 
Having  shown  you  what  the  -public  sees,  our 
specialist  shows  you  why  the  public  impression 
from  what  it  sees  is  good,  or  bad,  or  indifferent. 
He  tells  you  what  you  ought  to  retain  as  strong, 
what  you  ought  to  throw  out  as  bad,  and  what 
you  ought  to  strengthen  as  indifferent. 

In  other  words,  the  service  is  not  merely 
passive,  but  strongly  helpful  and  constructive. 
The  conclusions  arrived  at  are  enunciated  in 
such  logical,  demonstrative  fashion  that  you 
understand  why  and  how  they  were  arrived  at 
and  can  intelligently  judge  as  to  their  truth  or 
otherwise. 

This  is  not  all,  however.  So  far  the  presenta- 
tion you  have  made  by  the  written  word — good, 
bad  or  indifferent  as  it  may  be — has  been  mir- 
rored. Selling  plans  back  of  presentation  are 

[65  ] 


Analysis  and  'Plan 


next  examined  and  their  worth  or  worthlessness 
decided  on,  the  conclusions  reached  being  care- 
fully explained  so  that  you  may  judge  whether 
they  are  right  or  whether  they  are  wrong. 

The  next  step  (as  considered  necessary  and 
advisable)  is  submission  of  new  ideas,  methods 
and  selling  plans  for  the  betterment  of  the 
business  under  consideration,  these  plans  being 
kept  within  the  means  at  hand  necessary  to 
carry  them  out;  in  other  words,  they  are  practi- 
cal^ not  idealistic. 

It  frequently  devolves  upon  our  specialist, 
under  this  service,  to  base  his  analysis  and 
plan  upon  a  business  to  be  launched  in  lieu  of 
one  already  launched;  in  which  case,  of  course, 
he  has  neither  current  plan  or  presentation  to 
analyze  and  comment  upon,  but  has,  in  lieu 
thereof,  the  highly  constructive  work  of  formu- 
lating plans  from  the  ground  up,  and  indicating 
in  broad  terms  the  trend  and  policy  of  presen- 
tation. 

Under  such  circumstances,  it  will  be  seen  that 
this  analysis  and  plan  service  gives,  in  effect, 
insurance  against  expensive  errors  that  might 
otherwise  be  committed  either  through  omis- 
sion or  commission. 

[66] 


Analysis  and 


The  Dando  Company,  in  approaching  a  busi- 
ness, potential  or  existent,  with  the  idea  of 
building  it  up,  finds  it  of  great  advantage  to 
consider  it  as  a  new  and  highly  individualized 
problem  and  strongly  recommends  that  the  firm 
procure  a  written  report,  as  above  indicated, 
through  our  specialist,  in  the  form  of  a  special 
"analysis  and  plan." 

The  charge  made  for  this  report  necessarily 
varies  because  the  cost  varies,  but  in  any  case 
the  fee  is  modest. 

We  trust  we  may  be  permitted  to  emphasize, 
with  all  the  earnestness  of  which  we  are  capable, 
the  advisability  of  procuring  this  report;  it 
clarifies  the  business  situation,  tells  us  and  our 
client  just  where  we  are  at,  and  enables  each  to 
move  with  certitude. 

In  making  it,  our  specialist  does  not  assume 
you  are  all  wrong,  though  in  his  experience  he 
finds  the  great  majority  are  wrong  in  some 
manner  or  degree.  His  province  is  to  be  earnest, 
sincere,  truthful,  straining  no  points,  twisting 
no  meanings,  looking  for  and  recognizing  good 
and  looking  for  and  recognizing  bad.  The  gov- 
erning idea  is  not  a  professional  review  for  a 
professional  fee,  but  an  outside  viewpoint 

I  67  ] 


Analysis  and 


through  a  skilled  interpreter  calculated  to  give 
you  the  net. 

In  his  constructive  capacity,  our  specialist 
gives  you  the  benefit  of  the  experience  of  years, 
gained  in  a  "planning"  and  "idea"  atmosphere 
such  as  but  few  men  have  access  to.  The  result- 
ant naturally  redounds  to  the  benefit  of  our 
client  and  ourselves. 

The  fee  paid  for  the  report  obligates  you  in 
no  sense  to  carry  the  matter  further  with  us 
unless  desired.  It  is  paid  for  a  specific  thing 
which  is  individual  to  itself  and  self-sustaining 
to  us.  We  naturally  hope  by  the  demonstration 
of  helpfulness  and  skill  the  report  will  disclose 
to  establish  permanent  business  relations 
through  it;  that  we  aim  at,  leaving  the  decision 
to  you. 

The  report  is  presented  to  you  in  type- 
written form  on  special  analysis  and  plan  blanks 
and  is  not  finished  till  you  say  so.  By  that  we 
mean  you  have  the  right,  after  preliminary 
report  is  in,  to  ask  such  questions  as  you  desire 
and  to  have  any  feature  of  the  report  ampli- 
fied or  detailed  to  your  satisfaction. 

Advertising  managers  use  these  reports  to 
stimulate  their  firms  to  bigger  and  better  selling 

[68  ] 


^Analysis  and 


methods.  They  are  frequently  procured  by 
heads  of  responsible  corporations  when  it  is 
desired  to  have  the  directorate  sanction  new  or 
more  active  selling  tactics.  Proprietors  use 
them  to  discover  causes  that  retard  or  handicap 
business,  or  to  find  wider,  better  markets.  We 
ourselves  use  them  as  a  fundamental  guide  in 
the  conduct  of  a  business  presentation  we  ex- 
pect to  make  successful  through  the  written  word. 
Those  interested  in  a  further  discussion  of  this 
subject  are  invited  to  send  for  book,  "Analysis 
and  Plan  as  a  Constructive  Business  Force." 

^Presentation 

Presentation  logically  springs  from  and  hinges 
on  plan  and  analysis.  The  plan  may  designate 
a  certain  audience  of  buyers  and  embrace  prin- 
ciples through  and  by  which  their  trade  is  to  be 
diverted,  coaxed,  won  or  created.  When  in 
possession  of  the  plan,  we  have  a  definite,  con- 
crete business  policy  approved  by  us  and  ap- 
proved by  our  principals,  in  writing,  for  direc- 
tion, reference  and  guidance.  Our  copywriter 
works  to  and  from  it,  our  designer  originates 
ideas  to  harmonize  with  it — everything  moves 
forward  from  the  original  impulse  and  idea  to 

[69] 


^Analysis  and 


the  finished  form  and  business  conception.  We 
all  start  right. 

When  the  plan  is  in  and  approved,  the  prep- 
aration of  "copy"  (the  written  word)  begins. 
The  task  of  the  plan  and  analysis  was  to  origi- 
nate practical  selling  plans,  ideas  and  methods. 
The  task  of  the  copy  is  also  to  sell. 

Selling  by  and  through  the  written  word 
demands  many  of  the  qualities  that  inhere  in 
the  writer;  it  also  demands  many  of  the  qualities 
that  inhere  in  the  salesman.  Withal,  the  art  of 
selling  by  the  written  word  is  very  seldom 
present  in  either  the  writer  or  the  salesman. 
The  man  successful  at  this  class  of  work  is  a 
distinct  and  individual  type  evolved  from  busi- 
ness needs — a  business  man  with  a  literary 
training — a  literary  man  with  a  business  train- 
ing. His  standards  of  success  do  not  lie  in 
unusual  situations  or  climaxes,  but  in  sales. 

His  work  is  not  primarily  measured  by  his 
power  to  arouse  attention  or  to  compel  interest, 
although  these  things  are  an  important  part  of 
his  work;  his  work  is  measured  by  results; 
results  he  must  get,  and  results  he  does  get;  the 
sum  of  these  results  makes  his  sales  reputation 
as  an  effective  writer  of  the  written  word. 


^Analysis  and  T'lan 


Seeing  that  good  business  literature  (the  term 
is  used  advisedly)  calls  for  the  arts  of  the  writer 
and  the  arts  of  the  salesman,  we  name  the  men 
who  possess  the  faculty  of  selling  through  the 
written  word  "writer-salesmen" — a  compound 
word  which  we  think  expresses  his  peculiar 
faculty  or  genius. 

The  true  writer-salesman  has  evoked  to  meet 
twentieth  century  business  needs  and  condi- 
tions. A  product,  as  he  is,  of  the  last  half 
century,  his  type  is  relatively  rare.  There  are 
not  many  such  men  in  America.  Of  the  rela- 
tively few  there  are,  the  great  majority  are  sell- 
ing their  peculiar  genius  to  themselves.  In 
other  words,  their  talent  is  employed  building 
up  their  own  business  as  Sears,  of  Sears,  Roe- 
buck &  Co.,  built  up  that  great  concern. 

The  chief  of  copy  staff  of  The  Dando  Com- 
pany has  been  classed  by  high  authority  as 
"one  of  the  three  men  in  America  who  are  abso- 
lute masters  of  the  persuasive  art." 

If  this  opinion  is  correct,  and  we  believe  it  is, 
it  will  be  perceived  that,  by  a  process  of  elimina- 
tion within  elimination,  we  aimed  high  and  got 
the  best  man  procurable. 

The  formula    for   good    copy    reads    easily. 


Analysis  and  'Plan 


You  simply  get  attention,  arouse  interest, 
create  desire  and  stimulate  to  action. 

Beneath  that  formula,  however,  lie  all  the 
complex  elements  of  the  writer-salesman's  art, 
science  or  genius  or  whatever  else  you  like  to 
call  it. 

From  our  own  personal  observation  of  writer- 
salesmen,  we  strongly  incline  to  the  belief  that 
what  they  have  is  a  natural  faculty.  Such  a  man 
can  give  you  his  methods,  but  he  cannot  tell  you 
how  he  gets  his  results.  It  is  true,  you  can 
trace  the  •principles  of  his  workmanship  in  all 
the  work  he  does,  but  his  success  seems  to  lie  in 
his  spiritual  interpretation  of  those  principles  to 
the  work  in  hand.  He  handles  a  subject  differ- 
ently to  most  people.  His  way  seems  a  strange 
way,  but  it  is  undoubtedly  a  resultful  way. 

The  letters  of  Sears,  of  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Co., 
were  pronounced  by  all  the  "experts"  to  violate 
about  every  law  of  rhetorical  and  literary  effi- 
ciency, yet  commercial  history  tells  us  these 
letters  brought  magnificent  results;  there  was 
something  in  the  man  that  sold  and  sold  heavily 
from  everything  he  wrote. 

We  think  one  almost  indispensable  quality 
in  the  writer-salesman  is  an  imagination  that 

[  72] 


Analysis  and 


conjures  up  a  composite  buyer,  and,  seeing 
him,  writes  at  him,  carrying  him  forward  to 
the  sales  point  by  degrees  as  his  expression 
indicates  certain  ground  leading  toward  the 
objective  has  been  won  and  can  be  left  behind 
with  confidence. 

Such  a  man,  winning  one  man,  convinces  a 
profitable  proportion  of  others  in  his  silent 
audience. 

A  logical  mind  is  certainly  another  quality  or 
attribute  of  the  writer-salesman — the  type  of 
mind  that  demands  proof  itself  and  gives  it  to 
others;  the  type  of  mind  that  backs  a  claim  with 
a  fact  and  convinces  by  a  process  of  evidence. 

Those  interested  in  a  further  discussion  of 
this  subject  are  invited  to  send  for  the  book 
written  by  our  chief  of  copy  staff,  entitled,  "The 
Selling  Force  and  the  Selling  Farce."  It  sheds 
an  illuminating  light  on  the  good,  bad  and  in- 
different phases  of  the  selling  word. 

A  brief  review  of  the  tools  used  to  get  results 
by  the  average  business  firm  may  now  be  in  place. 

The  Catalogue 

The  New  Standard  Dictionary  defines  "cata- 
logue" as,  "A  list  or  enumeration  of  names  of 

[73] 


^Analysis  and 


things  .  .  .  sometimes  with  explanatory 
additions." 

The  definition  can  hardly  be  classed  as  wrong. 
It  would  appeal  to  us  as  correct.  The  average 
catalogue  is  "a  list"  carrying  "sometimes"  ex- 
planatory (more  or  less)  additions. 

As  a  great  rule,  the  average  catalogue  posesses 
within  itself  no  element  of  salesmanship.  It  lists 
things  to  people  who  know  and  buy  them.  It  is 
distributing  goods  to  people  who  want  to  buy.  It 
has  no  creative  or  stimulative  value  whatsoever. 

The  Dando  Company  treatment  of  the  aver- 
age catalogue  would  increase  its  productivity, 
measured  by  orders,  at  least  one  hundred  percent. 
That  may  sound  to  you  like  an  overstatement. 
To  us  it  is  conservative  understatement. 

We  submit  in  all  patience  that  a  document 
like  a  catalogue,  circulating  among  the  very 
heart  of  a  house's  trade,  ought  to  carry  stimu- 
lating sales  appeal.  Manufacturers  evidently 
differ  from  us  in  this  conclusion.  Why,  we  do 
not  know.  No  one  has  ever  told  us  why  a 
business  catalogue  should  be  dry  and  unin- 
teresting— a  mere  "list." 

A  catalogue  usually  is  a  very  expensive  thing 
to  compile  and  mail.  By  reason  of  that,  it 

[74] 


^Analysis  and 


ought  to  be  made  a  resultjul  thing — a  very 
much  more  resultful  thing  than  it  is.  Cata- 
logues, by  their  very  nature — by  their  in- 
tensely concentrated  circulation  among  known 
buyers — naturally  bring  some  results,  and,  in 
some  cases  at  least,  quite  adequate  results. 
With  very  few  exceptions,  however,  it  may  be 
safely  said  that  nine  out  of  ten  should  bring 
very  much  greater  results  than  they  do. 

Bringing  catalogues  up  to  par — making  them 
sell  well — is  demonstrative  work  The  Dando 
Company  earnestly  desires. 

The  'Booklet 

Most  booklets  are  written  backward.  The 
amateur  writer  brings  the  thing  interesting  to 
him  forward  (his  business)  at  the  outset.  He 
forgets  that  his  business  is  not  nearly  so  in- 
teresting to  the  reader.  As  a  result,  an  appalling 
proportion  of  booklets  are  never  read. 

Booklets  that  are  not  read  cannot  get 
business. 

The  writer-salesman,  as  a  great  rule, 
promptly  brings  the  idea  to  the  foreground  and 
places  the  business  in  the  background.  He 
first  sells  the  reader  the  idea,  then,  when  desire 

[751 


Analysis  and 


for  possession  is  roused,  offers  the  thing  neces- 
sary to  satisfy  the  desire — the  product  of  the 
business. 

One  of  the  most  successful  booklets  ever 
written  by  our  chief  of  staff — a  booklet  that 
founded  a  great  life  insurance  company — talked 
about  the  principles  of  life  insurance,  page  after 
page,  with  absolutely  no  mention  of  the  company 
selling  life  insurance  till  the  last  page. 

The  final  page  climaxed  all  that  had  gone 
before.  A  desire  had  been  aroused,  and  the 
contract  of  the  company  was  tersely  offered  to 
satisfy  it.  That  booklet  worked  through  the 
stages  of  attention,  interest,  desire,  action, 
right  as  results,  the  conclusive  test,  proved. 

It's  a  mighty  good  thing  if  you  want  to  sell 
a  spade  to  interest  your  man  in  gardening;  he 
will  buy  the  spade  as  a  matter  of  course;  there 
will  be  no  necessity  to  sell  it  to  him. 

'Distribution  of  ^Booklets 

The  average  booklet  is  printed  and  mailed  to 
a  selected  list  of  "prospects."  If  ten  thousand 
are  thus  mailed,  an  audience  of  approximately 
ten  thousand  people  is  assumed.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  real  audience  may  be  nearer  one 


Analysis  and  'Plan 


hundred  than  ten  thousand.  People  will  dodge 
what  you  throw  at  them,  but  catch  what  they 
ask  you  to  throw. 

The  average  booklet  should  not  be  mailed 
unless  requested.  The  man  who  requests  a 
booklet  will  anticipate  it,  and  his  perusal  of  it 
may  be  counted  upon,  provided  it  has  been 
written  with  skill  and  tact.  The  man  who  has 
not  requested  a  booklet  and  finds  it  forced  on 
him  attaches  no  value  to  it  and  throws  it  away. 

The  system  of  lavishing  money  on  booklets 
to  get  them  read  is  all  wrong.  The  basic  mistake 
starts  in  distribution  and  is  perpetuated  in 
"copy."  Booklets  distributed  right  and  written 
right  will  be  read;  money  spent  to  get  them 
preserved  after  reading  is  well  spent. 

The  system  of  The  Dando  Company  provides 
for  the  intelligent  distribution  of  booklets  to  a 
picked  audience  under  conditions  where  it  is 
certain  they  will  be  read,  and,  in  a  large  number 
of  instances,  carefully  preserved. 

Betters 

Letters  comprise  what  we  term  "Inquiry- 
Bringers,"  "Answering  or  Sales  letters"  and 
"Follow-Up  "letters. 

[771 


^Analysis  and  "Plan 


"Inquiry- bringing"  letters  act  the  same  as 
advertisements  in  newspapers  or  magazines. 
That  is,  they  bring  in  inquiries  about  the  goods 
offered  or  for'  the  booklet  selling  those  goods. 
The  "Inquiry-Bringer"  puts  the  reader  at 
"attention."  He  requests  the  booklet.  An 
important  psychological  principle  is  involved 
in  this  "attention  request."  All  other  things 
being  equal,  it  insures  a  reading.  A  selling 
booklet  given  a  reading  will  do  the  rest. 

On  some  valuable  lists,  we  may  advise  as 
many  as  six  "  inquiry-bringers "  mailed  some 
ten  days  apart.  It  would  look  easier  to  send  the 
booklet  and  be  done  with  it;  but  we  are  not 
concerned  with  mailing  a  booklet  to  a  man  in 
the  hope  that  he  will  read  it;  we  want  the  man 
to  ask  us  to  mail  him  a  booklet  he  intends  to  read. 

What  we  are  working  for  is  the  request  of  the 
man,  not  a  name  to  mail  a  booklet  to. 

An  "Inquiry-Bringer"  is  merely  an  adver- 
tisement in  letter  form,  fulfilling  the  function  of 
an  advertisement  in  newspaper  or  magazine 
form.  As  we  have  already  explained,  there  are 
good  and  bad  advertisements.  There  are  also 
good  and  bad  "  Inquiry-Bringers. "  The  men 
we  retain  are  masters  in  the  very  important  art 


Analysis  and 


of  bringing   in  the   inquiries  —  the   seed   from 
which  spring  sales. 

"^Answering"  or  "Selling"  Jitters 

An  "Answering"  or  "Selling"  letter  is  the 
letter  that  goes  forward  to  the  inquirer  and  is 
usually  accompanied  by  the  catalogue  or  book- 
let. It  may  seek  to  heighten  interest  in  the 
booklet  or  catalogue  (a  perusal  of  which  it  is 
felt  will  insure  a  reasonable  probability  of  a 
sale)  or  it  may  itself  seek  to  sell  the  inquirer 
there  and  then.  The  particular  form  it  will 
assume  is  a  matter  of  judgment,  based  on  in- 
dividual conditions  and  guided  largely  by  the 
conditions  affecting  the  business  we  are  pushing. 

If  booklet  and  letter  arrive  at  the  psychologi- 
cal moment,  the  opportunity  for  an  immediate 
sale  is  strong,  and  under  such  conditions  the 
letter  will  work  for  it.  The  precise  form  this 
exceedingly  important  letter  takes  is  left  to  the 
wide  discretion  of  our  specialist.  He  is  out  for 
results  and  will  "close"  if  possible.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  is  watchful  against  premature 
sales  effort — a  serious  fault  in  most  business 
literature. 

The  problem  will  be  correctly  diagnosed  and 

[79] 


^Analysis  and 


handled  at  the  right  time;   of  that  our  client 
may  feel  certain. 

The  "Follow-Up" 

The  "Follow-Up"  goes  to  the  obdurates— 
those  who  have  resisted  the  first  sales  blow;  it 
may  also  go  to  people  it  is  desired  to  "ripen" 
for  personal  salesmen.  The  length  and  strength 
of  the  "follow-up"  varies  in  accordance  with 
the  proposition,  the  profit  on  the  proposition 
and  certain  data  and  experiences  concerning  it 
that  are  usually  known  in  a  general  way  at 
least  to  those  who  follow  selling  transactions 
by  the  written  word.  As  a  great  rule,  given  a 
sufficiently  large  list  of  names  to  exploit,  it  is 
impossible  to  overdo  the  "follow-up"  for  rea- 
sons we  will  presently  give.  The  great  fault 
with  most  businesses  is  that  they  are  under- 
advertised.  It  is  a  truism  that  "one  can  never 
get  too  much  of  a  good  thing."  It  is  particu- 
larly true  of  good  advertising.  When  you  con- 
nect with  a  man  bringing  you  results,  keep  him 
busy.  Mine  while  in  pay  ore. 


[80] 


glbbertising  principles 


gfobert&mg  ^Principle* 


ALL  that  is  human  must  retrograde 
if  it  do  not  advance. — GIBBON. 

DIGRESSION  will  now  probably 
be  of  service  and  value.  We  will 
come  back  later  and  complete  the 
circle  of  "advertising  tools." 

Pascal  it  was  that  said:  "Nature 
imitates  herself.  A  grain  thrown  into  good 
ground  brings  forth  fruit;  a  principle  thrown 
into  a  good  mind  brings  forth  fruit.  Every- 
thing is  created  and  conducted  by  the  same 
Master;  the  root,  the  branch,  the  fruits — the 
principles,  the  consequences."  And  it  was 
Wordsworth  who  said:  "Come  forth  into  the 
light  of  things;  let  Nature  be  your  teacher." 

To  say  Nature  teaches  us  the  principles  of 
advertising  may  seem  strange,  yet  she  does — 
true  principles.  Observe  that  Nature  shatters 
a  rock  with  a  blow,  or  wears  its  obdurate  sur- 
face away  by  silent  attrition.  Observe  that 
she  produces  wheat  from  wheat  seed,  and  the 
resultant  crop  is  poor  or  good  in  proportion  to 
protection  and  attention  and  cultivation.  Keep- 
ing these  few  facts  in  mind  and  holding  to 

[  83] 


^Advertising  Principles 

their  truth,  we  will  soon  perceive  that  some 
advertisers  sow  with  wrong  seed;  some  sow,  but 
do  not  cultivate;  some  sow  and  cultivate,  but 
do  not  protect. 

Sowing  with  wrong  seed  in  one  form  is  seen 
in  going  after  the  wrong  type  of  people,  as  when 
a  speculative  promoter  seeks  to  finance  his 
enterprise  among  bond  buyers. 

Sowing  with  poor  seed  is  seen  in  one  of  its 
manifestations  when  poor,  trifling,  purile  busi- 
ness literature  is  used  in  an  endeavor  to  land 
satisfactory  orders;  it  isn't  in  that  kind  of 
seed  to  deliver  the  expected  results. 

Neglect  in  attention  is  shown  by  an  unsys- 
tematized  "follow-up"  and  neglect  in  cultiva- 
tion is  shown  when  the  "follow-up"  itself  is 
too  poor  to  till  the  planted  soil. 

Neglect  in  •protection  is  seen  when  the  manu- 
facturer or  merchant,  having  planted  the  seed 
and  cultivated  the  crop,  neglects  to  put  a  fence 
around  it  that  would  keep  competitive  houses 
out — by  a  long  cumulative  follow-up. 

The  'Blow  in  Advertising 

There  are  men  and  methods  in  advertising 
that  get  results  at  a  single  stroke  by  the  brute 

[84! 


^Advertising  ^Principles 

weight  and  sledge  hammer  force  of  money. 
Thomas  W.  Lawson  is  master  of  that  art. 
When  financing  his  numerous  deals  in  the  past, 
he  telegraphed  page  advertisements  to  hundreds 
of  newspapers  overnight,  spread  his  message 
before  millions  of  people  under  conditions  where 
it  could  not  be  overlooked,  limited  the  time 
for  the  opportunity  or  otherwise  that  he  gave 
and  conditioned  instant  action  to  come  in — or 
stay  out. 

The  enormous  catalogue  of  Sears,  Roebuck 
&  Co.,  with  its  attractive  description  of  goods, 
is  a  "blow"  in  advertising.  Other  instances 
will  readily  occur  to  the  reader.  As  a  rule, 
the  average  advertiser  cannot  afford  to  aim 
for  results  in  this  fashion  overnight.  He 
cannot  shatter  the  rock  of  indifference  to  get 
the  gold. 

The  average  advertiser  should  be  satisfied  to 
follow  the  natural  processes  of  growth  and 
cultivation. 

If,  in  doing  so,  he  will  follow  sane  and  con- 
servative counsel  and  be  satisfied  with  making 
haste  slowly  he  will  win  enduringly: 

"First  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full 
grain  in  the  ear." 

[  85  ] 


^Advertising  'Principles 

As  no  man  has  ever  expressed  music  with  a 
single  harmony  or  melody,  so  no  man  can  ever 
express  a  business  with  a  single  advertising 
effort.  He  can,  of  course,  express  it  in  part. 
The  crop  comes  through  constant  effort;  so, 
relatively,  does  success  in  advertising — with 
constant  effort.  Advertising  should  grow  and 
expand  as  the  business  grows  and  expands;  its 
possibilities,  in  any  line  of  business,  are  limited 
alone  by  the  possibilities  of  that  business.  As 
the  business  evolves,  so  should  the  advertising; 
or,  reversing  matters,  as  the  advertising  evolves, 
so  should  the  business,  because  it  frequently 
happens  that  advertising  molds  a  business  in 
lieu  of  the  business  molding  the  advertising. 
The  relationship  of  good  business  and  good  ad- 
vertising is  so  close  as  to  be  comparable  only 
with  the  influence  the  sexes  have  over  each 
other. 

The  small  advertiser  should  take  a  small 
plot  of  advertising  ground  and  cultivate  it  in- 
tensively; if  he  takes  too  much  ground,  his  will 
be  a  partly  neglected  farm,  because  he  will 
lack  the  labor  (capital)  necessary  to  cultivate 
it.  As  the  small  farm  is  successful,  he  can,  from 
its  profits,  increase  his  labor  (capital)  roll,  and 

[  86] 


^Advertising  ^Principles 

go  by  degrees  into  larger  farming  areas  till  he 
may  eventually  blossom  out  from  a  local  to  a 
county,  or  a  state,  or  a  national  advertiser. 

The  feat,  however,  is  not  done  with  a  letter, 
an  advertisement,  a  folder  or  a  booklet.  The 
man  saying  that  he  will  "  put  you  on  the  map" 
with  a  single  effort  of  his  "marvelous"  brain 
will  be  the  better  off  for  being  shown  that  all 
men  are  not  fools;  show  him  the  door. 

A  letter,  an  advertisement,  a  folder  or  a 
booklet  will,  skillfully  written,  demonstrate  ex- 
ceedingly gratifying  results.  A  carpenter,  how- 
ever, does  not  attempt  to  build  a  house  with  a 
saw;  he  has  an  array  of  tools,  and  these  in- 
crease and  multiply  as  his  house  grows  in 
architectual  complexity  and  design. 

As  "eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty" 
so  eternal  versatility  is  the  price  of  advertising 
success.  The  National  Cash  Register  people  to- 
day are  not  doing  business  with  the  advertising 
material  they  started  with,  and,  a  few  years 
hence,  will  not  be  doing  business  with  the 
advertising  material  they  have  now. 

Constant^  not  spasmodic^  effort  is  the  price  of 
achievement.  The  farmer  tills  his  acres  season 
after  season,  year  after  year.  He  does  not  sit 

[  87  ] 


^Advertising  ^Principles 

down  after  the  preliminary  effort  of  planting 
one  crop  and  expect  it  to  reproduce  itself  in 
perpetuity. 

The  House  Organ 

The  monthly  house  organ  (by  house  organ 
we  mean  a  little  magazine  issued  by  the  house 
for  the  purpose  of  holding  and  building  busi- 
ness) is,  in  view  of  what  we  have  stated,  one  of 
the  finest  of  business-building  tools.  It  must 
be  issued  constantly,  therefore  its  effort  is  con- 
stant. It  must  be  issued  constantly  and  dif- 
ferently',  therefore  it  must  of  necessity  be  ver- 
satile. Issued  constantly  and  differently,  it 
compounds  goodwill  as  interest  compounds 
money,  and  is  found  doing  giant  advertising 
work  in  what  is  relatively  a  short  period  of  time. 

Under  certain  conditions,  the  house  organ 
can  give  a  class  of  publicity  that  literally  noth- 
ing else  can  duplicate.  There  are  many  ex- 
amples of  firms  making  almost  identically  the 
same  kind  of  goods  as  to  price  and  quality,  all 
calling  on  a  common  field  for  support,  and  all 
presenting,  so  far  as  the  buyer  can  judge,  about 
equal  claims  for  support,  judged  by  the  standard 
of  the  goods. 

(  88  ] 


^Advertising  ^Principles 

In  such  a  case,  a  capably  edited  house  organ 
injects  another  factor — that  of  goodwill.  The 
buyer  is  predisposed  toward  the  house — not  by 
the  goods,  but  by  the  heart,  brain  or  intellect. 
We  often  hear  the  expression,  "I  have  an 
affection  for  such  an  author,  book  or  magazine." 
It  is  true.  All  other  things  being  equal,  people 
will  buy  from  a  house  that  they  like,  and, 
through  a  house  organ,  skillfully  edited,  that 
liking  can  be  aroused  to  a  degree  that  will 
puzzle  and  perplex  competitors. 

A  house  organ  injects  into  a  competitive 
business  situation  something  that  was  not  there 
previously,  and  that  runs  like  a  subtle  under- 
current to  the  house  owning  it. 

It  is  naturally  assumed  and  granted  that  a 
good  house  organ  is  referred  to — one  reflecting 
editorial  skill,  psychology  and  business  knowl- 
edge put  in  such  form  that  it  will  help  the  other 
man. 

The  editorial  policy  is  dependent  to  such  a 
great  extent  on  individual  and  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances that  it  can  hardly  be  discussed  here; 
but  here,  as  in  all  business  literature,  effective- 
ness is  gained  by  selling  the  idea  upon  which  the 
business  is  based,  and,  subsequently,  offering  the 

[  89] 


^Advertising  Principles 

product  manufactured  to  fill  the  need  created. 
Lots  of  men  land  big  business  for  their  houses 
at  their  clubs  and  through  social  channels,  but 
they  do  not  do  it  by  shouting  the  name  and  price 
of  their  wares  in  the  club  room.  Good  advertis- 
ing is  just  as  subtle  a  thing  as  good  business. 

Of  The  Houghton  Line  (a  house  organ  with 
a  very  wide  circulation),  the  company,  in  a  re- 
cent booklet,  stated: 

"We  talked  the  matter  over  and  decided 
that  commencing  with  volume  2  (the 
seventh  number)  we  would  issue  The  Line 
upon  strictly  magazine  policies. 
"That  is  to  say,  the  reading  matter  was  to 
be  reading  matter  only,  and  there  was  to 
be  no  reference  to  our  goods  in  those  col- 
umns, but  we  were  to  depend  solely  upon 
the  advertising  pages  for  advertising  results. 

"In  nine  years  The  Line  is  credited  with 
having  earned  over  half  a  million  dollars  in 
profits. 

"It  has  reduced  the  cost  of  obtaining  in- 
quiries through  advertising  ninety  per  cent. 

"It  has  reduced  the  cost  of  general  publicity 
fifty  per  cent. 

[  90] 


^Advertising  Principles 

"It  has  reduced  the  cost  of  obtaining  the 

first  order  ninety-five  per  cent. 

"It  has  quadrupled  the  sales. 

"It  has  quadrupled  the  borrowing  capacity 

and  created   increased   confidence   in   the 

company  on  the  part  of  banks. 

"It  has  tripled  the  capital  stock. 

"It  has  created  an  unsolicited  demand  for 

company  stock  equal   to   many  times  its 

total  capitalization." 

Remember  that  two  of  the  greatest  jewels 
in  the  advertising  crown  are  continuity  and 
versatility,  and  remember  that  they  automatic- 
ally inhere  in  and  spontaneously  spring  from 
the  house  organ. 

If  you  can  afford  the  outlay  necessary,  by  all 
means  publish  a  house  organ;  without  it  you 
never  reach  your  full  measure  of  efficiency. 

Permit  us  to  say  once  again:  We  refer  to  a 
good  house  organ.* 

*  The  Dando  Company  publish  a  house  organ,  Knowledge^ 
and  one  issue  of  it  is  devoted  entirely  to  "The  House  Organ." 
Special  copies  of  this  issue  have  been  provided,  and  those  in- 
terested in  a  detailed  discussion  of  the  "How  and  Why  of  House 
Organs,"  their  possibilities  and  accomplishments,  are  invited 
to  send  for  a  copy  of  this  special  number. 

[91    1 


$eriobtcal 

rs,  f$ 
Journal*,  etc 


JUDGING  «•  balancing  an  account,  and  deter- 
mining on  which  side  the  odds  lie. — LOCKE. 

N  periodical  advertising,  we  have  two 
kinds  of  advertising  to  consider,  t.  e.t 
^cfisplsy^  and  ^classified)"  these 
being  the  technical  terms  adopted  by 
publishers. 

From  the  advertisers'  side,  we  have  to  consider 
whether  the  "copy"  is  written  and  designed  to: 

(1)  Draw  inquiries. 

(2)  Effect  sales. 

(3)  Give  general  publicity. 

In  display  advertising,  the  publisher  sells  you 
a  certain  amount  of  his  space  in  which  you 
insert  your  printed  word.  If  you  aim  at  sales, 
they  will  climb  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of 
that  printed  word. 

We  say  "strength"  with  a  lively  appreciation 
of  the  full  meaning  of  that  term.  Strength, 
almost  invariably,  comparing  like  things  to 
like,  accumulates  with  size. 

It  is  of  no  use  trying  to  force  a  thousand 

[95) 


Periodical  ^Advertising 

horse  power  charge  of  gasoline  into  a  ten-horse- 
power cylinder.  The  medium  simply  isn't 
adapted  to  the  work  and  fails  to  do  it. 

When  you  seek  to  sell  direct  from  the  adver- 
tisement, remember  that  the  announcement  has 
to  pass  through  the  stages  of  attention,  in- 
terest, desire  and  action.  You  cannot  bring 
about  all  these  phases  in  an  inch  of  space  no 
more  than  five-hundred-foot  steamers  can  be 
built  in  two-hundred-foot  drydocks  or  shipyards. 

In  advertising,  almost  invariably  (and  we 
speak  of  all  kinds  of  advertising),  strength 
comes  with  length.  Space  must  be  available  or 
the  selling  machine  will  not  work  to  rated  power. 

Possibly  one  great  mistake  of  advertisers  is 
in  trying  to  sell  direct  from  inadequate  news- 
paper, magazine  or  trade  journal  space. 

When  sales  space  cannot  be  taken,  the  proper 
procedure  is  to  use  the  limited  space  in  the 
periodical  to  draw  the  inquiry^  using  the  booklet 
that  answers  the  inquiry  to  effect  the  sale. 

A  good  "follow-up"  should,  of  course,  back 
the  booklet. 


I  96  1 


^Periodical  Advertising 

"Authors  must  not,  like  Chinese  soldiers,  expect  to 
win  victories  by  turning  somersets  in  the  air" 

— LONGFELLOW. 

Possibly  the  next  error  in  advertising  springs 
from  copy  that  aims  to  sell,  but  only  gets 
attention. 

The  attention  of  a  man  (or  woman)  must  be 
gained,  of  course;  but  copy  lacking  the  elements 
of  interest,  desire  and  action  is  deficient  and 
will  not  make  sales. 

Pretty  pictures  draw  attention,  help  sales, 
but  do  not  make  them. 

Typographical  effects  draw  attention,  help 
sales,  but  do  not  make  them.  Attention  is  one 
side  of  the  four-sided  selling  structure.  An 
advertisement  without  the  support,  in  proper 
position,  of  the  other  three  elements  cannot 
even  stand  by  itself.  It  falls  down. 

The  majority  of  advertisements  designed  to 
sell  are  strong  in  attention  value,  but  weak  or 
quite  deficient  in  interest,  desire  and  action 
value. 

"Inquiry ' '  Advertising 

An  advertisement  designed  to  draw  the  in- 
quiry should  have  attention  and  interest  value, 
but  can  dispense  with  desire  and  sales  value 

[97] 


^Periodical  ^Advertising 

because  those  two  factors  are  embodied,  or 
should  be  embodied,  in  the  lengthy  booklet  the 
inquirer  will  receive  when  he  answers  the  short 
advertisement. 

Chiefly,  the  advertiser  buys  circulation.  If 
circulation  is  the  sole  criterion  (which  it  is  not 
as  often  as  it  is),  space  at  $9  a  line  may  be  cheap, 
and  other  space  at  20  cents  per  line  may  be 
relatively  dear. 

The  publisher  producing  circulation  on  an 
enormous  scale  can,  like  any  other  merchant, 
afford  to  sell  his  commodity  cheaper,  and,  on  a 
basis  of  circulation  and  price,  he  does. 

It  costs  money  to  place  a  selling  advertise- 
ment in  a  good  publication  with  a  big  circula- 
tion— from  $800  to  $6,000  a  page  per  issue. 
If,  say,  $6,000  is  spent,  and  the  copy  does  not 
"hit"  the  audience,  a  big  loss  is  incurred. 

The  better  way  is  to  utilize  small  expensive 
space  to  draw  the  inquiries,  converting  those 
inquiries  into  sales  by  the  material  sent  in 
answer — the  written  word. 

' '  Selling ' '  ^Advertising 

A  good  advertisement,  with  sufficient  space 
to  sell  (usually  a  page)  and  designed  to  sell, 

[98] 


^Periodical  Advertising 

ought  to  sell.  It  ought  not  to  "build  goodwill" 
or  "give  prestige";  it  ought  to  sell. 

A  good  advertisement  designed  to  draw  in- 
quiries ought  to  draw  the  inquiries.  Both  kinds 
of  advertisements,  as  a  secondary  or  by-product, 
may  also  build  goodwill  or  give  prestige,  but 
they  should  do  the  primary  thing  required  of 
them  and  which  they  were  designed  for,  /.  e., 
make  sales  or  bring  inquiries. 

Your  advertising  agent  should  know  and  tell 
you  the  class  or  type  of  advertisement  he  is 
turning  out  and  inserting  for  you.  Find  out 
what  that  is.  Then  see  that  you  get  what  he 
should  have  delivered.  Do  not  be  misled  by  the 
"goodwill"  or  "prestige"  theory  unless  you  are 
deliberately  running  that  kind  of  advertisement. 

"goodwill"  Advertising 

A  "goodwill"  advertisement  falls  under  the 
head  of  "general  advertising."  It  is  not  de- 
signed to  make  immediate  sales.  Its  selling 
force  comes  from  continuous  reiteration,  like 
"Uneeda  Biscuit." 

As  a  great  rule,  reiterative  advertising  is  not 
for  the  small  advertiser.  It  would  break  him. 
By  the  time  he  got  reputation  he  would  be 

[99] 


Periodical  Advertising 

minus  his  bank  account  and  heading  for  the 
bankruptcy  court  or  a  receivership. 

The  small  advertiser  should  beware  of 'following 
or  imitating  the  methods  of  the  "general"  or 
capitalistic  advertiser.  Those  methods  will  break 
him,  and  he  has  no  business  using  them  unless 
backed  by  a  bank. 

Small  advertisers  are  guilty  of  this  ruinous 
act.  The  man  promoting  a  company,  for  in- 
stance, sees  a  great  Wall  Street  house  market  a 
fifty  million  dollar  issue  of  bonds  in  a  week, 
using  the  conventional  bond  house  four-page 
circular. 

He  gets  out  a  similar  prospectus.  He,  of 
course,  fails.  The  four-page  conventional  thing 
termed  the  circular  didn't  sell  the  securities  of 
the  bond  house.  The  reputation  of  the  bond 
house  did.  The  promoter  lacks  this  reputation. 
His  prospectus,  naturally,  lacked  selling  ele- 
ments; naturally  he  failed.  It's  all  very  simple 
when  you  know  and  reason  in  the  light  of  your 
knowledge.  Advertising  isn't  half  so  simple  as 
it  looks. 

Reiterative  advertising  isn't  necessary.  If 
the  space  necessary  to  the  reiterative  idea  is 
available,  it  can  be  utilized  for  messages  that  sell. 


^Periodical  ^Advertising 

These  messages  will  give  you,  as  a  by-product, 

"general  publicity"  and  "goodwill"  advertising. 

When  you  go  into  periodical  advertising,  mind 

what  you  are  doing.    Mistakes  are  expensive. 

' '  Classified ' '  ^Advertising 

In  "display"  advertising,  the  space  seeks  the 
reader.  In  classified  advertising,  the  reader 
seeks  the  space.  In  other  words,  men  with  a 
want  pick  up  the  paper  running  a  heading 
satisfying  that  want  and  look  under  that  heading 
for  what  they  desire. 

The  great  Sunday  newspapers  carry  "classi- 
fied" advertising  and  so  do  many  magazines. 
As  a  rule,  the  "classified"  rate  is  extraordinarily 
low  and  offers,  in  proportion  to  circulation  and 
the  rate  for  display,  an  advertising  bargain. 

Before  advertising,  consider  if  your  proposi- 
tion will  not  fit  the  "classified"  columns.  If  it 
will,  you  can  do  a  great  deal  of  remunerative  ad- 
vertising at  a  relatively  low  price.  Lots  of 
men  are  building  up  fine  businesses  through 
the  "classified." 

In  "classified,"  the  plan  to  follow  is  to  work 
for  the  inquiry  and  sell  from  what  you  send 
after  the  inquiry  is  received. 


^Periodical  ^Advertising 

Advertising  is  costly  and  is  perilous  in  the 
fact  that  a  number  of  trials  may  have  to  be 
made  before  you  hit  readers  of  a  publication 
just  right.  A  good  deal  of  money  may  be  swept 
away  before  this  is  accomplished.  Advertising  is 
a  weapon  that  cuts  both  ways — a  thing  that  can 
break  as  well  as  make.  Proceed  with  caution. 

The  copy  that  succeeds  in  one  publication 
may  not  succeed  in  another.  It  should  not. 
Publications  have  distinct  individualities.  They 
create  highly  individualized  followings.  An 
advertisement  may  pull  well  in  a  group  of 
publications,  but  advertising  adapted  or  keyed 
to  each  would  pull  infinitely  better.  This  is 
one  of  the  great  losses  of  American  advertising. 

^Advertising  in  'Periodicals  (Compared  with 
^Advertising  Through  the  trails 

Don't  let  anyone  tell  you  that  advertising  in 
periodicals  is  the  only  thing.  Men  have  built 
big  businesses  who  have  never  used  newspapers 
or  magazines. 

Don't  let  anyone  tell  you  that  advertising 
through  the  mails  is  the  only  thing.  It  is  not. 
Men  have  built  big  businesses  from  periodical 
advertising  who  have  used  the  mails  but  little. 

[  102  ] 


^Periodical  ^Advertising 

The  truth  is  in  the  middle.  Periodical  adver- 
tising and  mail  advertising  are  two  separate  and 
distinct  forces.  One  can  sell  without  the  aid 
of  the  other.  Both  can  be  used  in  conjunction 
very  advantageously. 

We  will  look  impartially  at  both  sides  of  this 
question. 

To  our  mind,  the  great  fault  of  advertising  in 
newspapers  and  magazines  (periodical  adver- 
tising, we  will  term  it)  is  that  you  lose  control 
of  territory  and  of  inquirers. 

This  is  not  so  by  mail.  A  mailing  campaign 
can  be  directed  into  specific  territory;  it  can 
bring  inquiries  from  a  very  closely  bounded 
zone  or  zones.  A  mailing  campaign  resembles  a 
searchlight,  throwing  its  business-bringing  rays 
precisely  where  they  are  wanted.  With  many 
propositions,  you  can  by  mail  canvass  build- 
ings, streets  and  sections  of  streets,  suburbs 
and  sections  of  suburbs,  "bunching"  inquiries 
just  where  you  want  them,  and  thus  having 
them  in  line  for  mail  work  and  the  subsequent 
work  of  salesmen. 

An  inquirer  from  a  periodical  comes  out  of 
the  air,  as  it  were.  Ordinarily,  there  is  no  means 
of  ascertaining  the  financial  caliber  of  the  man. 

[  103  ] 


Periodical  ^Advertising 

That  may  be  quite  an  important  thing  to  know. 

By  mail,  people  of  a  certain  rating^  living  in 
a  specified  district,  may  be  selected,  so  that 
inquiries  come  from  men  of  precisely  the  right 
caliber.  This  is  frequently  a  great  advantage. 
Effort  is  not  wasted. 

The  periodical  claims  to  give  cheaper  pub- 
licity than  the  mails  can  give.  A  periodical 
with  a  hundred  thousand  circulation,  for  illus- 
tration, will  sell  you  a  page  of  its  space  for 
$100.  It  would  take  100,000  two-cent  postage 
stamps  to  reach  a  similar  number  of  people  by 
a  letter.  That  would  be  $2,000,  not  counting 
the  cost  of  the  paper  and  envelopes  and  labor 
used  in  mailing  the  letters. 

If  all  that  hundred  thousand  circulation  com- 
prised a  market  for  the  advertiser's  wares,  that 
would  be  sound  logic.  It  doesn't  very  often. 

Lists,  compiled  carefully,  and  reached  through 
the  mails,  put  your  proposition  before  exactly 
the  right  class  of  people. 

Furthermore,  we  cannot  buy  circulation  by 
numbers,  but,  in  the  last  analysis,  by  results — 
either  in  inquiries  or  in  sales. 

We  have  personally  seen  a  thousand  letters, 
mailed  to  the  right  class  of  people,  bring  as 

[  104  ] 


'Periodical  ^Advertising 

many  replies  as  the  text  of  same  letter  inserted 
in  a  magazine  of  a  hundred  thousand  cir- 
culation. 

We  have  just  as  often  seen  that  condition 
reversed. 

We  hold  no  brief  for  selling  by  male,  mail  or 
periodicals.  We  personally  see  in  each  a  sep- 
arate selling  farce  >  to  be  used  singly  or  in  con- 
junction as  individual  conditions  advise  or 
indicate. 

The  man  restricted  to  territory,  either  by  con- 
tracts or  by  capital,  will,  of  course,  have  no 
need  of  magazines.  He  may  use  local  papers 
advantageously.  It  isn't  a  simple  matter  to 
determine  these  things.  It  calls  for  specialized 
knowledge  based  on  constant  experiences.  It 
is  wise  to  seek  specialized  advice  before  reaching 
a  final  decision. 


[  105] 


Jfflanufacturer, 

jobber  anb  Bcalcr 


Manufacturer,  Mijole= 
staler,  Jobber  anfc  Dealer 


THE  conditions  of  conquest  are  always  easy. 
We  have  but  to  toil  awhile^  endure  awhile^ 
believe  always,  and  never  turn  back. — SIMMS. 

UR  heading  opens  a  big  subject — 
far  too  big  to  be  more  than  touched 
on  here.  Some  thoughts  occur  to 
us  in  regard  to  it,  however,  that 
may  have  a  useful  trend  in  stimu- 
lating other  thought. 

"Forcing"  products  on  a  dealer  is  not  doing 
the  thing  right  or  working  in  harmony  with 
success  principles.  A  campaign  worth  while 
will  seek  the  co-operation  of  the  dealer. 

Co-operation  can  be  sought  either  as  dis- 
tributors or  in  a  financial  sense. 

The  dealer  should  be  sold  on  the  merchandise 
just  as  effectively  as  the  consumer.  He  should 
not  be  sold  on  price,  but  by  conviction.  He 
should  consider  your  goods  good  goods. 

The  dealer  should  be  helped  to  send  out  of 
the  front  door  the  things  you  send  in  by  the 
back  door. 

[  109  ] 


zJvCanufacturer,  Wholesaler^ 

Dealers  do  not  value  advertising  material, 
and  waste  it,  simply  because  they  have  not  been 
taught  its  true  value  as  a  business-winning  tool 
to  them. 

Teach  the  dealer  advertising  values. 

'Dealers  vs.  Salesmen 

Dealers,  as  a  great  rule,  are  distributors,  not 
salesmen.  It  is  useless  to  expend  salesmanship 
on  them  and  not  on  the  consumers  around  them. 
If  you  confine  salesmanship  to  dealers,  they  will 
get  "stuck"  with  your  goods.  You  may  do  a 
good  first  business,  but  a  bad  last  business. 
Consider  the  dealer's  shop  as  you  would  con- 
sider it  if  it  were  a  branch  distribution  house  of 
yours.  You  would  have  your  local  manager 
compile  names  and  addresses  of  surrounding 
consumers  and  you  would  work  to  send  them 
to  the  branch. 

The  dealer  appears  obstinate,  but  he  is  not. 
You  must  find  why  he  appears  so  and  reason 
with  him.  His  seeming  obstinacy  will  melt 
before  the  rays  of  self-interest  if  you  can  show 
them  to  him. 

Put  into  the  dealer's  mouth  the  same  sales 
arguments  as  you  put  into  the  consumer's 

[  no] 


Jobber  and  'Dealer 


brain.  When  each  meet,  they  will  naturally  and 
automatically  make  the  same  points.  The 
buyer's  beliefs  will  be  thus  strengthened  to  the 
point  of  conviction. 

If  capital  is  limited,  pick  a  number  of  in- 
fluential dealers  and  create  a  demand  for  your 
goods  around  them. 

When  the  dealer  feels  this  demand,  he  will 
automatically  "stock  up." 

Sale  and  distribution  problems  relating  to 
the  dealer  are  many  and  varied.  Difficult  as 
many  of  them  look,  they  dissolve,  as  a  rule, 
under  common-sense  thinking  when  backed  by 
the  requisite  knowledge  and  experience. 


IT  is  not  my  periods  I  •polish, 
but  my  ideas. — JOUBERT. 

O  far  we  have  dealt  with  the  import- 
ant elements  of  plan  and  copy 
in  selling  by  the  written  word. 
Design  is  of  related  importance. 
The  New  Standard  Dictionary  de- 
fines the  term  as: 

"An  arrangement  of  forms  or  colors,  or 
both,  intended  to  be  executed  in  hard  or 
pliable  material.  ...  It  may  be  (i) 
technical,  to  serve  some  useful  purpose; 

(2)  decorative ,  to  beautify  a  useful  object; 

(3)  pictorial  or  artistic,  to  give  lasting  ex- 
pression to  an  ideal. 

"The  adaptation  of  forms  to  spaces,  ob- 
jects and  materials;  artistic  invention." 
Broadly  speaking,  a  designer  plans  the  work 

another  is  to  construct  precisely  as  an  architect 

plans  a  dwelling  for  a  builder. 

The  writer  impresses  the  mind.    The  designer 

impresses  the  senses — chiefly  the  senses  of  eye 

and    touch    and    sound — seeing,   feeling    and 

hearing. 


'Design 

Design  is  the  physical  environment  of  crys- 
tallized mental  thought.  Copy  is  the  man;  de- 
sign is  his  dress.  W.  S.  Jevons,  in  his  little 
work  on  logic,  tells  of  "Monsieur  Jourdain,  an 
amusing  person  in  one  of  Moliere's  plays,  who 
expressed  much  surprise  on  learning  that  he 
had  been  talking  prose  for  more  than  forty 
years  without  knowing  it.  Ninety-nine  people 
out  of  a  hundred,"  says  Mr.  Jevons,  "might  be 
equally  surprised  to  hear  that  they  had  long 
been  converting  propositions,  syllogizing,  falling 
into  paralogisms,  framing  hypotheses  and  mak- 
ing classifications  with  genera  and  species. 

"If  asked  whether  they  were  logicians,  they 
would  probably  answer,  No!  They  would  be 
partly  right,  for  I  believe  that  a  large  number  of 
educated  persons  have  no  clear  idea  of  what 
logic  is.  Yet,  in  a  certain  way,  every  one  must 
have  been  a  logician  since  he  began  to  speak." 

Perhaps  that  little  extract  will  assist  in 
making  it  clear  that,  like  Monsieur  Jourdain, 
ninety-nine  people  out  of  a  hundred  are  dealing 
in  the  elements  of  design  without  knowing  it. 

Here  is  the  typewritten  message — the  writ- 
ten word.  It  is  to  be  distributed  to  thousands, 
and  perhaps  hundreds  of  thousands,  of  people. 

[  116] 


'Design 

A  little  reflection  convinces  us  that  economy 
will  be  served  by  printing  it.  We  then  (if 
handling  the  job  ourselves)  begin  to  ask  our- 
selves a  thousand  and  one  questions:  What 
type  will  I  use?  what  paper?  what  size? 
what  color  of  paper?  what  color  of  ink? 
what  cover?  Will  I  make  it  a  folder  or  a 
booklet?  etc.,  etc. 

We  have,  in  addition,  to  consider  two  things 
we  want  to  accomplish:  We  want  to  do  that 
work  economically  and  we  want  to  do  it  so 
that  it  makes  a  favorable  impression  on  the 
senses  of  the  prospective  customer  in  whose 
hands  we  will  place  it. 

It  looks  like  the  old  clash  of  cheapness  vs. 
quality.  Recollecting  the  importance  of  a  favor- 
able impression^  it  looks  as  if  we  must  forget 
price  and  insist  on  quality.  Recollecting  the 
importance  of  cash,  it  looks  as  if  we  must  forget 
quality  and  insist  on  price.  The  printer,  in 
either  case,  can  be  made  to  give  us  what  we 
want. 

Here  is  one  function  of  the  designer;  he 
steps  in  and  shows  that  reasonable  economy  is 
not  incompatible  with  good  design.  By  reason 
of  his  knowledge,  he  may  produce  for  you  a 

[ 


'Design 

design  that  will  give  a  most  favorable  impres- 
sion at  one-fifth  of  the  cost  you  would  have 
been  under  had  you  sought  to  obtain  that 
identical  impression. 

Dirt  has  been  defined  as  "matter  in  the 
wrong  place";  wrong  design  is  simply  that, 
"materials  in  the  wrong  place."  We  must  not 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  object  of  design 
is  to  create  through  the  senses  a  favorable  mental 
impression. 

It  is  not  the  province  of  design  to  create  an 
impression  of  cost.  Neither  is  it  necessarily  its 
object  to  create  a  merely  artistic  impression. 
Its  object  is  to  create  a  favorable  mental  impres- 
sion— an  impression  that  helps  to  sell. 

We  probably  have  all  experienced  the  sensa- 
tion of  talking  to  another  party  before  a  silent 
third  party  who,  in  some  way,  we  know,  has  an 
influence  on  us  both.  To  our  mind,  the  import- 
ance of  design  lies  in  its  undoubted  power  to 
subconsciously  add  another  message  to  the  text. 

This  may  be  made  clearer  by  the  words  of 
our  chief  of  copy  staff;  he  said: 

"I  have  repeatedly  contended  that  the 
right  message,  scrawled  with   a  piece  of 

[  118] 


^Design 

charcoal  on  the  back  of  an  oyster  shell,  will 
produce  results.  That  is  putting  copy  to 
work  under  most  difficult  conditions  and 
demonstrating  its  power  to  overcome  them, 
precisely  as  the  personality  of  a  man  will 
eventually  overcome  the  handicap  of  ill- 
fitting,  shabby  or  slovenly  clothing. 

"But  why  call  upon  copy  to  demonstrate 
its  power  under  stress  and  handicap?  In  an 
experimental  way  that  may  be  useful,  but  in 
business  matters  we  must,  like  the  straight 
line,  take  the  shortest  distance  between  two 
points,  and  arrive  from  attention  to  action 
by  the  route  that  causes  us  the  minimum 
of  friction  and  trouble,  otherwise  profits 
will  be  lost  to  our  client. 

"In  this  light,  design  is  of  supreme  im- 
portance. It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  for  me 
to  say  that  I  have  witnessed  on  countless 
occasions  the  supreme  importance  of  design. 
Let  me  cite  a  few  examples: 

"The  firm  was  old,  reliable  and  respon- 
sible; it  did  its  business  with  what  may 
be  termed  'Dutch  thoroughness*  and  con- 
ducted it  with  Quaker-like  honesty. 

"It  was  my  privilege  to  prepare  a  series  of 

[ 


'Design 

mailing  pieces  for  this  firm — some  twenty  in 
all.  This  involved  conveying  the  necessary 
message  in  twenty  different  installments  or 
parts. 

"Responsibility,  age,  reliability  was,  of 
course,  one  of  my  most  forceful  points;  yet, 
I  deemed,  others  had  precedence  of  them. 
I  opened  the  campaign  from  a  different 
angle;  yet,  to  my  amazement,  when  the 
first  five  pieces  of  the  series  came  to  me 
from  the  designer's  hands,  he  had,  in  some 
subtle,  baffling  way,  impregnated  and  en- 
vironed the  presentation  with  just  those 
elements — age,  responsibility  and  relia- 
bility. He  had  literally  encompassed  my 
message  with  another — a  silent  voice  of 
marvelous  power. 

"Some  years  prior  to  this,  before  I  knew 
the  firm,  my  first  contact  with  it  came 
through  a  letter  I  received  from  them,  the 
letter  head  (as  I  subsequently  learned)  be- 
ing from  the  hands  of  the  same  designer 
(Mr.  J.  Frank  Eddy).  I  remember  the  letter 
talked  of  one  thing  and  the  design  of  the 
letter  talked  eloquently  of  another — age, 
responsibility,  reliability.  Accustomed,  as 

[  120  ] 


^Design 

I  am  to  analyzing  and  expressing  my  feel- 
ings, it  took  me  some  time  to  realize  what 
was  talking  to  me  outside  of  the  letter  it- 
self. I  finally  succeeded  in  placing  that, 
but  when  I  in  turn  went  after  the  method 
by  which  the  result  had  been  achieved  I 
failed.  Nothing  was  patent.  The  effect 
was  too  subtle  for  that.  I  failed  because 
I  lacked  the  necessary  skill  and  technical 
knowledge  to  know  how  physical  things 
had  been  handled.  I  failed  because  I  was  a 
writer,  not  a  designer.  Back  of  the  effect 
were  years  of  painstaking  study,  backed, 
undoubtedly,  by  a  natural  faculty.  This 
and  kindred  things  represented  its  fruits. 

"I  consider  design  of  supreme  importance 
in  presentation  by  the  written  word.  It  is 
a  very  hard  thing  to  adequately  describe. 
It  broods  over  copy  like  holiness  broods 
over  a  stately  cathedral;  like  thoughts  of 
religion  and  God  spring  from  the  grandeur 
of  the  mountain  or  the  loveliness  of  the 
valley." 

We  all  feel  the  power  of  design  because  we 
all  strive  for  it.     That  we  do  not  succeed  in 


T^esign 

getting  it  is  the  fault  of  our  training  and  not  of 
ourselves.    As  Jevons  says: 

"It  may  be  asked:  If  we  cannot  help  being 
logicians,  why  do  we  need  logic  books  at  all? 
The  answer  is  that  there  are  logicians  and 
logicians.  All  people  are  logicians  in  some 
manner  or  degree;  but  unfortunately  many 
people  are  bad  ones,  and  suffer  harm  in 
consequence." 

So  we  are  all  designers  in  some  manner  or 
degree.  The  mistakes  that  flood  the  mails  prove, 
however,  that  most  people  are  bad  designers. 
They  strive  to  gain  favor  and  achieve  cost. 
They  miss  what  they  aim  at— -favorable  impres- 
sion. In  business  that  is  paramount.  Its 
presence  makes  and  its  absence  breaks. 

The  Dando  Company,  realizing  the  importance 
of  design  in  copy,  has  secured  a  master  of  the 
craft.  He  takes  the  finished  written  word  and 
environs  and  frames  it  with  knowledge  and  art 
that  gives  to  it  another  property  and  quality  that 
enhances  selling  force  to  a  remarkable  degree. 

By  and  through  him,  the  physical  materials 
that  comprise  the  art  of  printing  are  brought 
into  right  relationships,  the  resultant  being  a 

[  122  ] 


^Design 

physical  product  correct  in  technique — "matter 
in  the  right  place." 

Such  work  brings  personality  and  atmosphere 
to  a  line  of  advertising,  uniting  it  through 
artistic  resemblance  into  an  immediately  recog- 
nizable "family  group,"  bringing  elements  of 
permanency  and  dignity,  without  which  the 
finest  copy  is  heavily  handicapped. 


I  123  ] 


printing 


printing 


MANY  persons  feel  art,  some  understand 
it;  but  few  both  feel  and  understand  it. 

— HlLLARD. 

E  have  now  covered  three 
sides  of  the  selling  struc- 
ture, /.  e.j  plan,  copy  and 
design.  We  now  come  to 

O 

the  fourth  and  final  side- 
printing.  Printing  multiplies  and  crystallizes 
plan,  copy  and  design. 

The  finished  product  demonstrates  whether 
we  have  got  the  thing  we  aimed  to  get,  or 
something  else. 

Design  is  too  subtle,  too  ethereal  a  thing  to 
obtain  through  verbal  specification ;  it  demands 
reproduction  and  crystallization  under  the  im- 
mediate observation  of  the  designer. 

The  realization  of  an  ideal  is  difficult  enough 
at  best;  it  becomes  practically  impossible  where 
artist  and  artisan  cannot  work  under  conditions 
where  the  closest  supervision  and  co-operation 
exist. 

Realizing  the  importance  of  printer  super- 
vision to  both  copy-writer  and  designer,  The 

[  127) 


'Printing 

Dando  Company  has  installed,  in  its  own  build- 
ing, under  the  constant  supervision  of  the 
Design  Department,  one  of  the  most  complete 
and  efficient  printing  plants  available  in  the 
city  of  Philadelphia — a  plant  capable  of  phys- 
ically creating  and  delivering  any  style  and 
quantity  of  printed  material  judged  appro- 
priate to  the  presentation  in  hand.* 

Design  may  call  for  the  simple,  chaste  or 
severe,  or  for  the  ornate,  florid  or  elegant- 
whatever  the  demands  in  color,  size  or  individ- 
ualized shape  or  form — the  Dando  plant  can 
efficiently  fill  them. 

Through  every  stage,  the  printing  is  watched 
by  experts  to  the  finished  form,  so  that  it  may 
emerge  from  the  presses  in  finished  Jorm — per- 
fect from  a  printing  standpoint. 

The  thing  desired  is  obtained.  The  mental 
conception  is  realized  in  the  final  product.  There 

*  This  element  in  direct  advertising  has  been  given  liberal 
discussion  by  printers  for  a  long  time — job  printers,  big  printers, 
little  printers,  good  printers,  artistic  printers,  cheap  printers, 
"dear"  printers  and  other  brands  of  the  craft.  The  Dando 
Company,  seeking  to  reduce  the  abstract  to  the  concrete  and 
substitute  proof  for  claim,  will  send  (by  express)  a  chest  of 
printed  specimens  (weight,  approximately  100  pounds)  any- 
where in  the  United  States  upon  the  reasonable  request  of  any 
reliable  business  house. 

[  128  ] 


^Printing 

are  no  disappointments.  We  see  (if  necessary 
through  painstaking  experimentation)  a  press 
sample  of  what  we  want  before  the  presses 
multiply  it. 

We  repeat,  this  is  the  only  safe  way  to  pro- 
cure the  largest  measure  of  perfection — to  ap- 
proximate an  ideal — final  judgment  of  the  first 
press  proof  rests  neither  with  printer  nor  client, 
but  with  designer.  If  it  is  the  thing  he  has 
mentally  conceived  and  worked  towards,  it 
goes  through;  if  it  is  not,  the  presses  stop  till 
it  is. 

And  we  see  to  it,  as  the  work  goes  through, 
that  each  impression  is  equal  in  every  respect 
to  the  first  press  impression.  Every  copy  of 
the  entire  run  is  equal  to  the  first  few  copies 
you  see.  Uniformity  of  product  is  a  difficult 
thing  to  get  in  printing.  It  costs  money  at  the 
presses.  There  each  copy  is  checked  and 
inspected.  You  could  not  possibly  inspect 
every  copy  and  every  page  of  copy  on  a  large 
run.  Responsible  men  in  the  press  room  should 
do  that  for  you.  It  is,  invariably,  done  in  the 
Dando  plant,  where  good  work  is  a  habit. 


[  129  ] 


Conclusion 


Conclusion 


THE  best  way  to  come  to  truth  being  to  examine 
things  as  they  really  are,  and  not  to  conclude 
they  are,  as  we  fancy  of  ourselves  or  have  been 
taught  by  others  to  imagine. — LOCKE. 

3N  taking  the  reader  through   all  the 
stages  incident  to  plan,  copy,  design 
and  printing,  we  trust  it  has  become 
clear    that    the    Dando   organization 
offers  a  complete  service  to  men  who 
rely,  wholly  or  in   part,  on  the  written  word  to 
sell  their  products  or  their  services. 

You  may  visit  this  organization,  and,  without 
moving  from  your  chair,  be  in  instant  touch 
with  all  the  men,  all  the  facilities,  all  the  ideas 
necessary  to  help  you  in  your  sales  problem. 

A  connection  with  the  Dando  organization 
renders  "shopping"  both  unnecessary  and  ill 
advised. 

Advertising  should  be  a  coherent,  logical 
thing  under  control  and  supervision,  from  the 
start  on,  of  one  master  brain.  Unity  of  aim 
and  purpose  always  brings  the  best  results. 

Advertising  is  far  too  big  and  too  complex  a 
subject  to  be  more  than  touched  on  in  the 

i  133  1 


(Conclusion 

pages  of  a  business  book  such  as  this.  The 
Dando  literature  of  advertising  is  stupendous, 
but  it  appears  neither  in  booklets  nor  books;  it 
is  created  and  perpetuated  daily  in  advisory 
service  to  clients. 

A  book  may  crystallize  today's  ideas,  but 
not  those  of  tomorrow.  Advertising  methods 
are  constantly  being  changed  by  nation-wide  and 
world-wide  conditions.  Specialized  problems  in 
selling  must  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  these 
changes.  The  only  safe  rule  in  advertising 
practice  is  that  which  rules  in  medical  practice 
— an  individual  study  of  each  separate  business 
problem  in  the  light  of  the  most  recent  knowl- 
edge and  experience. 

A  firm  seeking  a  better  business  experience  had 
best  not  come  to  us  with  worn-out  policies  and 
methods  to  which  they  require  us  to  fit  copy. 

The  proper  course  is  to  begin  with  Analysis 
and  Plan — from  thence  to  copy,  from  thence  to 
design,  and  from  thence  to  printing. 

It  is  a  highly  advisable  thing,  even  when  it  is 
practically  certain  that  modern  methods  and 
ideas  prevail,  to  allow  a  review  of  what  is  being 
done  under  Analysis  and  Plan,  because,  in  our 
experience,  "copy"  is  strengthened  by  the 

I   134  ] 


(Conclusion 

emphasis  given  to  data  by  this  independent  and 
preliminary  review. 

In  the  entire  history  of  the  Analysis  and  Plan 
Department,  during  which  the  methods,  ideas 
and  selling  policies  of  many  great  commercial 
houses  have  been  reviewed,  there  has  occurred 
but  three  instances  where  we  could  conscien- 
tiously report  that  conditions  found  were  beyond 
our  power  to  improve. 

When  we  find  such  a  desirable  condition,  we 
are  exceedingly  glad  to  say  so;  we  would  like 
to  be  able  to  say  it  much  oftener  than  we  do. 

A  firm  about  to  enter  business  will  logically 
benefit  by  arranging  for  our  entire  service. 
Firms  already  in  business  can,  in  all  probability, 
reap  an  equal  benefit.  That,  at  least,  has  been 
our  experience. 

Business  relationships  do  not  necessarily  in- 
volve Analysis  and  Plan,  but  experience  con- 
firms us  in  our  desire  to  earnestly  recommend  it. 

Our  departments  are  independent,  one  of  the 
other,  at  option  of  our  client.  He  is  not  neces- 
sarily bound  to  carry  out  what  we  recommend 
through  us.  In  other  words,  the  first  trans- 
action is  paid  for  and  involves  no  subsequent 
obligation. 

[  1351 


(Conclusion 

Many  firms  use  our  Analysis  and  Plan  De- 
partment without  copy.  Others  instruct  us  to 
prepare  copy  without  preliminary  analysis  and 
plan;  others  use  the  services  of  our  design  and 
printing  organizations  without  reference  to 
plan  or  copy.  Each  division  is  complete  in 
itself,  ready  to  give  each  client  what  he  needs. 

Those  who  have  hitherto  ordered  printing 
without  design  will  be  agreeably  surprised  at 
the  effects  we  can  give,  at  relatively  low  cost, 
with  the  two  forces  combined  and  working  in 
unison,  as  in  the  Dando  plant. 


Spasmodic  advertising  effort,  while  frequently 
resultful  and  gratifying,  so  far  as  it  goes,  con- 
tains, by  its  very  nature,  no  element  of  con- 
tinuous progress.  A  good  business  ought  to  be 
progressive.  It  has  a  journey  to  go.  Its  goal  is 
success — a  success  equal  at  least  to  leaders  in  its 
line — perhaps  a  success  that  will  eclipse  them. 

A  business  should  not  be  subjected  to  a  shunt- 
ing process;  it  should  roll  forward  smoothly  on 
the  steel  rails  of  progress  under  the  impulse  of 
continuous  advertising  power.  An  alliance  with 
an  advertising  house  should  be  sought  with  this 

[  136] 


(Conclusion 

end  in  view.  In  searching  for  such  a  house, 
the  cool-headed  business  executive  will  look 
past  the  enthusiastic  but  ignorant,  the  clever 
but  designing,  the  wordmonger  and  claim- 
smith,  and  demand,  for  the  responsible  business 
task,  the  services  of  responsible  people. 

This  rule,  which  is  a  sound  rule,  will  eliminate 
much  of  the  perplexity  that  will  otherwise 
exist  in  choosing  advertising  co-operation. 

Responsibility,  in  our  eyes,  has  a  double 
meaning.  There  is  property  and  moral  respon- 
sibility; property  responsibility  is  good  in  law 
for  what  it  says  it  will  do — no  more  or  no  less. 
Moral  responsibility  carries  a  lively  sense  of 
duty  to  one's  fellow  man. 

A  "property-responsible"  dentist  may  kill  the 
nerve  of  a  sound  tooth  to  save  himself  time 
and  trouble  in  filling;  a  morally  responsible 
dentist  would  not  do  that,  but  would  preserve 
the  live  tooth,  if  necessary,  at  the  cost  of  the 
patient's  nerves,  and,  perhaps,  his  patronage. 

Advertising,  as  we  have  endeavored  to  show, 
is  an  elemental  force  or  power  as  capable  of 
wreaking  harm  as  good.  In  the  delicate  and 
complex  work  of  applying  this  force  to  a  busi- 
ness organization,  we  feel,  to  the  full,  the  truth 

[ 


Conclusion 

of  those  words  of  the  great  Disraeli,  "All  power 
is  a  trust;  we  are  accountable  for  its  exercise." 

The  captain  of  a  great  steam  vessel  has  lives 
and  enormous  property  value  in  his  charge. 
He  has  reached  a  position  of  responsibility  and 
trust  because  of  a  careful,  conservative  tempera- 
ment that  worked  to  avoid  accident.  His 
freedom  from  accident  procured  him  the  repu- 
tation that  made  him  captain  of  the  vessel  he 
commands.  Had  he  been  otherwise,  a  series 
of  accidents  would  have  caused  him  to  be 
regarded  as  "unsafe"  or  "unlucky,"  and  he 
would  have  captained  no  such  ship. 

A  business  such  as  ours  is  built  on  our  clients. 
It  succeeds  as  they  succeed  and  fails  as  they 
fail.  Self-interest,  if  nothing  else,  demands 
that  a  great  organization  move  with  the  utmost 
care  and  caution  in  dealing  with  the  sales 
problems  of  those  it  serves.  //  becomes  what  it 
is  by  that  process. 

The  Dando  Company  has  been  established 
in  business  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia  nearly 
half  a  century;  it  owns  its  own  building  and 
plant,  and  has  a  staff  of  half  a  hundred  people; 
it  invites,  prior  to  business  negotiations,  a 
careful  investigation  of  its  moral  and  financial 

[  138  ] 


Conclusion 


.  *  •,  oeo.eeo 


*,  000,000 


TkE  GXPAHD  NATZONJU.  BANK 


'The  Dan  do  Company  has  been  know  to 
this  Bank  for  a  long  time*     They  hare  been  in 
business  for  nearly  half  a  century  and  we  cogr 
sider  then  thoroughly  reliable,  able  and  willing 
to  honorably  carry  out  any  contracts  they  under- 
take. 

Yours 


CJIA/8. 


"39 


(Conclusion 

responsibility,  and  will  gladly  assist  to  the 
extent  of  its  ability  in  aiding  any  investigation 
it  is  desired  to  make  in  this  direction  through 
bank,  trade  and  commercial  references. 

May  we,  as  a  parting  word,  be  allowed  to 
again  emphasize  the  fact  that  creative  business 
advertising  is  the  continuous  application  of  an 
elemental  force;  that  the  force  remains  con- 
stant, but  the  methods  of  using  it  are  changed 
by  the  march  of  circumstances;  that  the  right 
kind  of  advertising  alliance  is  made  on  the 
permanent  footing  and  basis  that  anticipates 
these  changes  and  evolves  new  ideas  and 
methods  to  meet  them  or  further  them  as  they 
arise. 

Continuity  of  effort  and  versatility  in  effort 
comprise  the  two  basic  levers  that  lift  a  business 
to  affluence  and  prosperity. 

Keep  the  levers  busy  till  you  "arrive." 

THE  DANDO  COMPANY 

34  SOUTH  THIRD  STREET 
PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 


